On Some Arguments for the Necessity of Necessity

Bob Hale

Mind, New Series, Vol. 108, No. 429. (Jan., 1999), pp. 23-52.

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 On Some Arguments for the Necessity of Necessity
BOB HALE

Must we believe in logical necessity? I examine an argument for an affirma-

tive answer given by Ian McFetridge in his posthumously published paper
"Logical Necessity: Some Issues", and explain why it fails, as it stands, to
establish his conclusion. I contend, however, that McFetridge's argument
can be effectively buttressed by drawing upon another argument aimed at es-
tablishing that we ought to believe that some propositions are logically nec-
essary, given by Crispin Wright in his paper "Inventing Logical Necessity".
My contention is that Wright's argument, whilst it likewise fails, as it stands,
to establish the necessity of necessity, establishes enough to close off what
appears to me to be the only effective-looking sceptical response to
McFetridge's original argument. My paper falls into four principal parts. In
the first, I expound McFetridge's argument and draw attention to the possi-
bility of a certain type of sceptical counter to it. In the second, I begin a re-
sponse to this sceptical move, taking it as far as I can without reliance upon
argument of the kind given by Wright. Turning, then, to Wright's argument,
I explain to what extent I think it is successful and seek to rebut some objec-
tions to the argument which, were they well-taken, would show that the ar-
gument cannot enjoy even the partial success I wish to claim for it. Finally,
I return to my main theme and try to show, with the assistance of what I take
to be solidly established by Wright's argument, that the sceptical response
collapses.

Must we believe in logical necessity? An argument for an affirmative

answer was given by Ian McFetridge in his posthumously published
paper "Logical Necessity: Some Issues" (McFetridge 1990). In this
paper, I expound and examine the argument I take McFetridge to have
been propounding and explain why it fails, as it stands, to establish his
conclusion. I believe, however, that it is possible to re-inforce
McFetridge's argument so that it does work. To explain how this can be
done, I need to examine another argument aimed at establishing that we
ought to believe that some propositions are logically necessary-hence
the plural in my title-given by Crispin Wright in his paper "Inventing
Logical Necessity" (Wright 1986). My contention is that Wright's argu-
ment, whilst it likewise fails, as it stands, to establish the necessity of
(belief in) necessity, establishes enough to close off what appears to me
to be the only effective-looking sceptical response to McFetridge's origi-
nal argument. Since my proposed buttressing of McFetridge's argument
relies upon my claim that Wright's argument, while not completely suc-
cessful, does secure a result very much to the purpose, I need to get clear
precisely what that argument establishes. This requires a moderately

Mind, Vol. 1 0 8 . 4 2 9 . January 1999 O Oxford University Press 1999

lengthy digression from my main theme, in consequence of which this
paper falls into four principal parts. In the first, I expound McFetridge's
argument as I understand it and draw attention to the possibility of a cer-
tain type of sceptical counter to it. In the second, I begin what I hope will
be an effective response to this sceptical move, taking it as far as I can
without reliance upon arguments of the kind given by Wright. I turn, in
the third part, to Wright's argument, explain to what extent I think it is
successful and, in the course of doing so, seek to rebut some objections
to the argument which, were they well-taken, would show that the argu-
ment cannot enjoy even the partial success I wish to claim for it. Finally,
I return to my main theme and try to show, with the assistance of what I
take to be solidly established by Wright's argument, that the sceptical
response collapses.

1. McFetridge 's argument, and a sceptical counter to it

The argument with which I shall be concerned comes at the very end of
McFetridge's paper, and occupies little more than half of one page. As
with many short but weighty arguments, however, a degree of preparation
is needed to set the stage for it. The conclusion of the argument is that we
must believe in logical necessity. But what is logical necessity? And what
does belief in it amount to? McFetridge has much to say in the body of his
paper about these questions, some of it essential to understanding and
appreciating the force of his argument.
The first question may naturally be taken to split into two by shift of
emphasis: firstly, what is logical necessity? and second, what is logical
necessity? I am quite sure that McFetridge did not see himself as provid-
ing a complete characterisation, much less a dejinition, either of the nar-
rower notion of logical necessity or of the broader one of necessity; as
we shall soon see, that does not greatly matter. Part of what he says on
the first of these questions is that logical necessity is the strongest kind
of necessity, in the sense, approximately, that "if it is logically necessary
that p, then it is necessary that p in any other use of the notion of neces-
sity there may be (physically, practically, etc.). But .. . the converse need
not be the case. Something could be for example physically necessary
without being logically necessary" (McFetridge 1990, p. 137).' This
I McFetridgerightly, I think-regards the assumption that logical necessity
is the strongest kind of necessity as central to a traditional conception of logical
necessity. It is worth emphasising that McFetridge does not simply assume that
logical necessity has this feature; he gives a very interesting argument for it (1 990,
p. 138). This is one reason why he should not be seen as attempting to
 On Some Arguments for the NecessitJ, of Necessity 25

explanation (that i s o f "strongest") will not quite do as it stands, as

McFetridge himself notes, because there are epistemic notions of possi-
bility on which the contradictory of what is logically necessary may be
epistemically possible. Thus on one view, one or other o f Goldbach's
Conjecture and its negation is logically necessary, but whichever of them
it is, the other is epistemically possible (that is roughly, true for all w e
presently know).2 The explanation can, I think, readily be adjusted to
accommodate this c ~ m p l i c a t i o n O
. ~n e obvious reason why--even if
there were not other, decisive, reasons against doing so--it would be
unsatisfactory simply to deJine logical necessity as the strongest kind of
necessity is that this would leave it quite obscure what logical necessity
has to d o with logic. McFetridge's second main claim speaks to this con-
cern. He writes:
Deductive validity is the central topic of logic. S o if, as Aristotle
and others have thought, to think of an argument as valid requires

define logical necessity as the strongest kind of necessity. I think this argu-
ment,which I shall not go into here, is basically sound, but establishes a some-
what weaker conclusion than McFetridge claims. What the argument shows is
not that logical necessity is the strongest kind of necessity-"the highest grade
of necessity", as he puts i t - b u t that logical necessity is absolute, in the sense
that if it is logically necessary that p, then there is no non-epistemic sense of
possibility in which it is possible that not-p. The claim that a kind of necessity is
absolute is equivalent to the claim that there is no stronger (non-epistemic) kind
of necessity. To establish that logical necessity is the strongest kind of necessity
would require showing that there cannot be more than one kind of absolute ne-
cessity. It is not easy to see how this might be shown; indeed, it is not clear that
it is even true. At any rate there is a significant question that ought not to be fore-
closed by simply defining logical necessity to be the strongest kind. See Hale
(1996, pp. 93-1 17) for a discussion of an argument for the absoluteness of logi-
cal necessity very closely related McFetridge's, and of the philosophical signifi-
cance of its conclusion.
The example is, of course, doubly tendentious. Intuitionists and constructiv-
ists generally will not like it. Nor will those who agree that true number-theoretic
propositions are necessary, but deny that the necessity can be properly regarded
as logical. I leave readers of either persuasion to choose their own examples. Of
course, no examples can be given that will commend themselves to those who
deny the existence of logical necessity altogether, but that is obviously no cause
for legitimate complaint.
The matter is not entirely straightforward. It would be easy enough to
amend the characterization to: "if it is logically necessary thatp, then it is neces-
sary that p in any other non-epistemic use of the notion of necessity there may
be". But such an amendment is in good standing only if we can satisfactorily
mark off epistemic notions of necessity. The question is how that should be
done. I think that the salient feature of epistemically modal notions is that they
involve a relativity to time in one way or another (for example a relativity to our
current state of information), and that the best way to frame the needed amend-
ment may thus be to exclude all notions of necessity which involve such relativ-
ity.
 us to deploy a notion of necessity, then that notion, if any, will de-
serve the label "logical" necessity. There will be a legitimate no-
tion of "logical" necessity only if there is a notion of necessity
which attaches to the claim, concerning a deductively valid argu-
ment, that if the premisses are true then so is the conclusion.
(McFetridge 1990, p. 136)
His thought, clearly-and, in my view, correctly-is that if there is any
logical necessity at all, thee-or at least a-fundamental case of it lies
in the connection between the premisses and conclusion of a valid
argument. Accordingly, it will suffice to establish his main thesis to
show that we ought to believe that at least some modes of inference
are logically necessarily truth-preserving. That is why it is unneces-
sary, for his purposes, to provide a fully general characterization, or
general definition, either of necessity in general or of logical necessity
in particular.
What he does need to do is to explain what it is to believe, of a
given mode of inference, that it has that character. His explanation
(which, in my view, displays something close to philosophical genius
in its originality and simplicity) can be seen as the product of two
entirely familiar and uncontroversial points, one about valid deductive
inference and the other about subjunctive or counterfactual condition-
als. The point about deductive inference is, in essence, the very first
thing we all learn when we begin to study logic: that we must distin-
guish the question whether an argument is valid from the question
whether its premisses are true, the validity, or otherwise, of the argu-
ment being independent of the truth-value(s) of the premiss(es). As
McFetridge puts it,
. .. the acceptability in an argument of some mode of inference is
supposed to be quite independent of whether or not the overall
premisses of the argument represent beliefs we have or mere sup-
positions we are making, as we put it, "for the sake of argument".
Deductive inferences, then, are supposed to remain valid when
they are applied to mere suppositions, and indeed regardless of
what suppositions they are applied to, or are made in the course
of the argument. (McFetridge 1990, p. 151)
The point about counterfactual conditionals is likewise, at least in essence,
simple and familiar enough: our assessment of a conditional "If it were
(had been) the case that p, it would be (have been) the case that q" is typ-
ically, if not invariably, relative to or dependent upon various background
suppositions concerning the truth-values of other statements. When we
agree, for example, that if Simpson had not landed on the snow bridge, he
would have fallen another 100 feet, probably to his death, we are envisag-
ing Simpson's fall occurring in circumstances very much like those in
which he actually fell, perhaps differing from the actual circumstances
 On Some Arguments for the Necessity of Necessity 27

only in that he unluckily misses the snow bridge 20 feet down into the cre-
vasse and in other respects consequent upon that difference. We are not
envisaging a situation in which the crevasse bottoms out at 30 feet, or in
which there is no crevasse there at all. Whilst the point itself is simply
stated, an explanation of the significance McFetridge finds in it requires a
few more words.
He begins by reminding us of a familiar crux in the theory of counter-
factual^.^ If we try saying that a counterfactual is true if there are suit-
able truths from which, in conjunction with its antecedent, its consequent
may be inferred by means of a natural law, then we confront (as Good-
man first pointed out) two problems. How is the class of natural laws to
be demarcated? And how are we to circumscribe the class of "suitable"
truths from which, together with the antecedent, the consequent is to be
inferred? We cannot allow just any true statement to figure as a supple-
mentary premiss, since the negation of the antecedent will be true, and
from this together with the antecedent itself, any consequent whatever
may be drawn.5 We would like to restrict the admissible supplementary
premisses to those co-tenable with the antecedent, where that means: it
is not the case that, were the antecedent true, they would be false. But
that is hopelessly circular, if our goal is to explain the truth-conditions of
counterfactuals. However, as McFetridge observes: ". . . this will not be a
difficulty if we change priorities and try rather to understand reasoning
from a supposition" (McFetridge 1990, p. 152). His thought, in part at
least, is that if we relinquish the aim of explicating the truth-conditions
of counterfactuals and raise instead questions about reasoning from sup-
positions, there will be no objectionable circularity involved in charac-
terising co-tenable suppositions in this way. What specific questions
about reasoning from suppositions did he have in mind? Although he
does not raise them explicitly, I think it is clear that two of them could be
put like this:
Given a certain suppositio-that p--what modes of inference
can be employed in reasoning under that supposition?
and, for a given mode of inference M:
Under what range of suppositions may M be employed?
Modes of inference, here, need not be thought of as restricted to patterns
of inference to which recognition is accorded in formal logic. We may
think of (putative) natural laws, or lawlike general statements, a s o r as
having associated with t h e w m o d e s of inference. Indeed, we may even
view singular statements of various kinds (including, most obviously,
"hat follows is my gloss on McFetridge (1990, pp. 151-3).

At least if the logic is classical, or even intuitionistic.

28 Bob Hale

conditionals) as being employable as such.6 Of course, precisely because

such statements involve expressions which tie them to a particular subject
matter, their use as principles of inference will be limited in a way that the
use of modes of inference such as modusponens and modus tollens is not.
But this is no objection to viewing them as employable as modes of infer-
ence.
Limitations of applicability of the kind just noted are limitations of
relevance. The reason why I cannot use, say, the generalization that cop-
per conducts electricity in figuring out what will happen if I dig in lime
at the rate of 100 grams per square metre where I plan to plant fritil-
laries, is not that the generalization cannot be relied upon under this
supposition; it is simply that the generalization has no bearing on the
question that interests me. Of greater interest here is a different kind of
limitation upon the employability of a mode of inference, of which
McFetridge reminds us. The range of suppositions under which a natu-
ral law, for example, may be employed as a principle of inference may
be very large, but not so large that there is no supposition under which it
may not properly be so used. In very many contexts, there is no objec-
tion to reasoning in accordance with the inverse square law, say, assum-
ing that it can be brought to bear upon the matters under consideration.
But if we are trying to work out the observational consequences of a
rival physical theory in which gravitational attraction is governed by an
inverse cube law, say, then obviously we ought not to make inferences
employing the usual square law. Somewhat differently, and equally
familiarly, it may be that there are known boundary conditions on the
law, satisfaction of which can often be taken for granted; but under sup-
positions where their satisfaction is in question, so too is use of the law
as a principle of inference. There may, then, be suppositions that can be
entertained, in reasoning from or under which a mode of inference is
not properly relied upon.
We are now ready for McFetridge's answer to the question about the
content of a belief in logical necessity, or more exactly the content of the
belief that a certain mode of inference is logically necessarily truth-pre-
serving (so that the corresponding conditional is true as a matter of logical
necessity):
I ... suggest that we treat as the manifestation of the belief that a
mode of inference is logically necessarily truth-preserving, the
preparedness to employ that mode of inference in reasoning from
any set of suppositions whatsoever. Such a preparedness evinces
Thinking of statements, whether lawlike or not, as usable as principles of in-
ference need not, of course, involve any commitment to Ryle's notorious attempt
to make out that they are merely "inference tickets" and not genuine true or false
statements at all.
 On Some Argumentsfor. the ~Vecessit?;of .Vecessity 29

the belief that, no matter what else was the case, the inferences
would preserve truth. (McFetridge 1990, p. 153)7
To draw out, more explicitly than McFetridge himself does, the contrast
he is implicitly making between natural and logical laws, we might-with
a small, but so far as I can see, unobjectionable extension of Goodman's
use of the term "co-tenable3'--call the range of suppositions under which
the use of a mode of inference Mis not questionablifor the sorts of reason
touched upon its co-tenability range. Part of McFetridge's thought is then
that natural laws, employed as modes of inference, have typically a large,
but not unrestricted, co-tenability range. And his earlier claim that logical
necessity is the strongest kind of necessity can now be seen to require that
there be no restrictions upon the co-tenability range of logical laws; the
corresponding modes of inference would, as he puts it, preserve truth, no
matter what else was the case, and so may legitimately be employed in
reasoning from any set of suppositions whatsoever.$
That completes the stage-setting. We are ready for the argument itself.
On McFetridge's account, to believe that a particular rule of inference R
is logically necessarily truth-preserving is to believe that no matter what
supposition s we may make, R is truth-preserving in reasoning under s . If
we agree with him that the fundamental case of logical necessity, if there
is such a thing at all, is that involved in valid infeience, belief in logical
necessity centrally involves-though its content may not be exhausted
Fairly clearly, McFetridge is not suggesting that the content of a belief in log-
ical necessity can be explicated in wholly non-modal terms. He is, rather, proposing
that it can be explained in terms of acceptance of a kind of generalized counter-
factual. In a little more detail, and going somewhat beyond anything he says in his
paper, the idea can be put like this. To believe that an inference p, so q" is neces-
sarily truth-preserving is to believe the corresponding conditional "Ifp, then q" to
be logically necessary, i.e. to believe that (p + q). If we write r~ for the coun-
terfactual conditional, McFetridge's thought is that the content of this belief can be
given by: Vs(s B O,-+9)). On any standard semantics for counterfactuals, he is
clearly right, at least in the sense that the (logically) necessitated conditional and the
corresponding generalized counterfactual are equivalent. If (p + q) is true, then
p +q is true at all possible worlds, and hence at all nearests-worlds, whatever s may
be, so that Vs(s m O,+ q)) is true. Conversely, if Vs(s rn (p + q)) is true, then
p + q is true at all nearests-worlds, however s is chosen. But since s can be chosen
any way we like, thismeans wemust havep +q trueat all worlds, that is (p + q ) .
06vio;sly the idea can be easily tdcover arbitrary beliefs in logical ne-
cessity, say by. explaining
. the belief that necessarily. .p as the belief that Vs(s m p).
A Quinean sceptic about necessity may baulk at the characterisation of logi-
cal laws as having a completely unrestricted co-tenability range. Such a thinker
may agree that what are usually called logical laws have a more extensive co-ten-
ability range than what are taken to be laws of nature, however hndamental. So
much is merely an alternative expression of the view (to which he, with Quine,
subscribes) that logical laws are more deeply entrenched in our overall system of
beliefs than any others. But no statements (or principles of inference) are, he may
protest, so deeply entrenched as to be unbudgeable (absolutely entrenched). No
questions are here begged against this position. It is true enough that McFetridge's
30 Bob Hale

by-belief that there is at least one such rule. Accordingly, to deny that a
particular rule R is logically necessarily truth-preserving is to hold that
there is some suppositions such that, with s in play, we may not safely rea-
son in accordance with R. And to disbelieve in the existence of logical
necessity is to hold that for every rule R, there is some suppositions under
which we may not safely employ R.
McFetridge does not argue, concerning any particular rule, that it is
logically necessarily truth-preserving. The argument he gives is designed
to show, rather, that we must believe that some rules have this character.
"To abandon the belief in logical necessity", he writes, "would be to
believe that for every acceptable mode of inference M there is at least one
proposition r (it might be a very long disjunction) such that it is illegiti-
mate to employ M in an argument which makes the supposition that r"
(McFetridge 1990, p. 53). McFetridge argues that this sceptical position
is incoherent. Before we turn to details, we should pause briefly to note a
point about the scope of his argument which is implicit in the remark last
quoted.
McFetridge equates "abandoning the belief in logical necessity" with
believing the negation of what, on his proposal, is the content of the belief
that at least some rules are logically necessarily truth-preserving, that is
that for every rule, R, there is some supposition s such that, if it were the
case that s, applications of R would not always preserve truth. The equa-
tion might be challenged. In particular, a sceptic about necessity might
think he can decline to accept that there are any rules which would pre-
serve truth no matter what else was the case, but decline also to endorse
the contradictory belief that for any rule, there are or could be circum-
stances in which it would not preserve truth. This kind of sceptic might
aptly be called an agnostic about necessity. On my construal of his argu-
ment-which seems clearly correct, given his gloss on what it is to aban-
don belief in logical necessity-McFetridge's target is the kind of sceptic
who commits himself to the belief that there are no rules applications of
which would be truth-preserving no matter what else was the case. This

characterization pre-empts the use of what a thinker of this persuasion might oth-
envise view as a perfectly serviceable piece of vocabulary: there is, the Quinean
may hold, no objection to describing logical laws as (logically) necessary, any
more than there is to describing those of physics as (physically) necessary; pro-
vided that we do not fall into the error (as he supposes) of thinking that the neces-
sity attaching to logical laws is any different in kind from that belonging to the
laws of physics, or to any other statements deeply entrenched in our overall theory
of nature. But whilst the Quinean may deplore the proposed usage, it begs no
question against him: in particular, it is still open to him, for all that has been said
thus far, to voice his doubt as the doubt that there are any logically necessarily
truth-preserving modes of inference, in the sense proposed.
 On Some Arguments for the Necessity of Necessity 31

kind of sceptic might, by contrast, be called an atheist about necessity.

Thus if agnosticism is a tenable position, it would seem that McFetridge's
argument, at least as I construe it, suffers from a serious limitation. Per-
haps there is an alternative construal of his argument on which it does not
suffer from this limitation, but if there is, I have not managed to get it into
clear focus. In any case, given my construal of McFetridge's argument,
the question must obviously be confronted: What should be said to the
would-be agnostic about necessity? The answer, I think, depends on what
kind of agnostic he would be. The crucial question concerns the source of
his unwillingness to be committed either to the belief that some rules are
necessarily truth-preserving or to the belief that no rules are. He may be
unwilling because, whilst he takes himself fully to understand the altema-
tives, he simply cannot see how to determine which should be accepted.
This is straightforward agnosticism. But he may be unwilling because he
doubts the coherence or intelligibility of the terms in which the alterna-
tives are put, perhaps because, like Quine, he regards all modal talk as
somehow defective and philosophically disreputable.
The straightforward agnostic may, I think, be answered quite swiftly.
This agnostic accepts the disjunction: Either for every rule R, there is
some supposition s such that if it were the case that s, applications of R
would not always preserve truth or there is at least one rule R which would
preserve truth no matter what else were the case. If McFetridge's argu-
ment is good, it shows that the first disjunct must be rejected. So unless
she can find fault with that argument, the straightforward agnostic should
come off the fence and accept the other disjunct.
Evidently a good answer to the more radical agnostic calls for many
more words; more, certainly than I can spare here, where I can do no more
than indicate the lines along which I think it should run. An answer might
begin by pointing out that blanket rejection of the counterfactual condi-
tional as simply unintelligible is not only desperate but clearly in tension
with the plain fact that nearly everyone seems to understand it well
e n ~ u g h so
, ~that this agnostic had better have some very convincing rea-
sons for thinking that our apparent understanding is illusory. If the agnos-
tic is Quine himself, it would be in point to observe that, official
professions to the contrary notwithstanding, he appears in practice to have
no difficulty in making sense of talk of statements holding true "come
what may" (note "may", not "does"), and that it does not appear possible
to formulate the central theses of "Two dogmas .. ." (Quine 195 1) without
using some modal word. But a fully satisfying answer would have to go
Well enough; I do not claim, and do not need to claim, that we are in posses-
sion of unquestionably correct answers to all the hard questions which a philoso-
pher might raise about the meaning, analysis or truth-conditions of counterfactual
conditionals.
32 Bob Hale

deeper than such sniping and challenge the eminently questionable

assumptions about the constraints on intelligibility on which this kind of
scepticism (about modal and intensional notions in general) feeds.1°
On my reading, then, McFetridge's target is the sceptic who commits
himself to the belief that there are no rules applications of which would be
truth-preserving no matter what else were the case. His argument to the
incoherence of this runs as follows:
Either (a) for some R, the sceptic holds that we know (and so can fully
state) a suitable s
or (b) he holds that whilst there is, for every R, such an s, in no case
do we know it (and so in no case are we able fully to state it).
(a) collapses: let R be a rule for which we can fully state the relevant sup-
position, which we shall denote s*. Then, where R is "From X infer A",
let R* be the rule "From X, i s * infer A". By hypothesis, s* is a full state-
ment of the circumstances in which R (allegedly) fails to preserve truth,
so that R* is a counter-example to the sceptic's claim. So he must opt for
(b).
(b), however, is no good either, according to McFetridge, because its
effect is to render (all) our rules of inference unusable. Let R be one of our
rules, and let p be some supposition. To know whether we can rely upon
R under the supposition that p, we have to ask: if it were the case that p,
would R be truth-preserving? But answering this question will involve
some reasoning, on the supposition thatp. What rules shall we use, in car-
rying out that piece of reasoning? Not R itself, obviously, since its reliabil-
ity in the case in question is sub judice. But no other rule either. For to
determine whether we can rely upon another rule, R', we have again to
answer the question: were it the case that p , would R' be reliable? So we
are stuck, or off on an infinite regress. As McFetridge has it ". .. the same
problem will break out again, on the view that no rule is co-tenable with
the universal range of suppositions" (McFetridge 1990, p. 154). Hence we
must accept that there are some rules which are unrestrictedly reliable, in
the sense that there are no suppositions under which they may fail to pre-
serve truth.
To this argument as it stands there is, it seems to me, a fairly obvious
counter. Why can't the sceptic retort along these lines:
Why do you assume that if I am to use a rule R in reasoning under
the supposition thatp, I must first be able to ascertain whether R
is, under that supposition, reliable? I don't have to do that. It is
enough that I have no positive reason to doubt that R will fail un-
der the supposition that p .
l o Many of the essential points are made by H. P. Grice and P. F. Strawson
(1956), succinctly and forcefully reiterated by Crispin Wright (1986, see espe-
cially pp. 18S90).
 On Some Arguments for the Necessity of Necessity 33

This sceptic is claiming that it is not required, if we are to be entitled to

employ a rule of inference R under the supposition that p , that we assure
ourselves that, were it to be the case that p, rule R would (still) be truth-
preserving. His attitude is that in employing R in reasoning under a sup-
position, we make a defeasible assumption to that effect-so long as that
assumption remains undefeated, we have all the justification we need, and
all the justification of which the case admits, for employing the rule. He
believes in British justice: a rule is innocent until proven guilty.

2. A response to the sceptic begun

The sceptic's reply is plausible, but is it cogent? I think it is fair to say that
the position he seeks to occupy will constitute no genuine alternative (i.e.
to the belief that there must be some absolutely or unrestrictedly valid
rules) unless we can take his "falsificationist" methodology seriously. I
shall try to show that we cannot do so.
If the sceptic's professed falsificationist attitude towards rules of infer-
ence is not to be empty, it requires us to think that, for any one of our rules
R which has thus far survived all attempts to envisage its failure, it is nev-
ertheless conceivable that some circumstances p should obtain, in which
R would recognisably fail to be reliable. Falsificationism without the pos-
sibility of recognisable falsification is not worthy of serious consideration.
So let us consider, schematically, how this allegedly conceivable "falsi-
fication" of a rule could come about. For definiteness, and without loss of
generality, let us suppose R to be the rule of Conjunction Elimination
(&E). What is alleged to be conceivable is that circumstances p might
obtain, of which we could recognise that, if they did obtain, this rule
would fail to preserve truth. Here '3"will have to be a description of cir-
cumstances in which some particular conjunctive statement-which we
may represent as "A and B"-would be true, and yet one of its conjunct*
"B" say-would be false. The claim would be that since, by the rule in
question, "B" can be inferred from "A and B", we can see that, were it to
be the case thatp, this rule would fail.
In performing this marvellous feat of recognition, we must accomplish
several things which it will be worthwhile to list separately, obvious
though they may be:
(i) we have to recognise that, were it to be the case thatp, "A and B"
would be true
(ii) we have to recognise that, were it to be the case thatp, "B" would
not be true
34 Bob Hale

(iii) we have to recognise that our rule of &E cannot be truth-preserv-

ing unless, were "A and B" to be true, "B" would be true also.
There may be more,l but this will do to be going on with.
Now, save in the case (which I suppose we may discount)12 where "p"
is some description of an allegedly possible circumstance which expressly
states that "A and B" is true, discharging subtask (i) will involve some rea-
soning. And the same goes, of course, for subtask (ii). And-though this
point needs rather careful handling13-it goes for subtask (iii) as well.
Let us, again without loss of generality, take the first case. Some rea-
soning has to go on here-to the conclusion, in this case, that were it the
case thatp, "A and B" would be true-and any reasoning proceeds, either
explicitly or implicitly, in accordance with some rule(s). But which
rule(s)? Not &E. Of course, we cannot now argue, as McFetridge did, that
that rule can't be employed because it is (still) subjudice; for according
to the position we are now discussing, all rules are always to be regarded
as innocent until proven guilty. They may, if you wish, be said to be, in
that sense, sub judice, but they are not so in any way which renders their
use objectionable. But we can rule out the use of &E none the less. First,
we can see that it could not, in any case, be the only rule employed. For if
' I There surely is more. In particular, we should have to recognise, given the
contents of the acts of recognition (iHiii), that were it to be the case thatp, &E
would fail to preserve truth. This clearly involves an inference, from the contents
of those acts as premisses. So even if it could be maintaine&as I do not believe
it can b e t h a t no reasoning need be involved in (iHiii), it remains that the en-
visaged recognition of the failure, in the circumstance that p , of &E to preserve
truth must involve some reasoning. I conjecture that this point holds quite gener-
ally: that whatever rule we are concerned with, and whatever the circumstances in
which it allegedly fails to do its stuff, some reasoning will be required for the rec-
ognition that the rule would fail in those circumstances.
l 2 I suppose we may discount this case because the bald supposition that
"A&Bn is true but "B" false is, prima facie, incoherent. What is needed is a spec-
ification of some state of affairs which (a) appears to express a genuine possibility
and (b) is such that we can be brought to see that, were it to obtain, "A & B" would
be true but "B" false, or at least that it would be reasonable to accept the former
but deny the latter.
I 3 The need for care derives from the fact that it is crucial to avoid claiming
that applying the rule of &E itself involves some further reasoning. What we are
concerned with here is not an actual application of the rule but what is required if,
in certain envisaged circumstances, the rule is to be truth-preserving. This is rea-
soning about the rule, not reasoning by it. Since the rule is general, and the claim
that it is truth-preserving equally general-it is the claim that whenever a conjunc-
tion is true, so must be each of its conjuncts separately-a definite step is involved
in appreciating that if the rule is truth-preserving, then if, in the circumstance that
p, "A and B" would be true, then, in the circumstance thatp, " B would likewise
be true. This seems to involve a step of Universal Quantifier Elimination at least,
and surely also a step of modus ponens. Acknowledgment of this point does not
commit us to the disastrous view that any application of &E has to be mediated
by steps of Universal Quantifier Elimination, modus ponens, etc.
 On Some Arguments for the Necessity of hrecessi@ 35

it were to be the only rule employed, "p" would have to incorporate some
statement of the form "'A and B' is true and C". This just takes us back to
the case where "p" explicitly states that "A and B" is true (or as good as
does so), and I think we can discount that at this stage: if we were prepared
to swallow this as part of a description of circumstances in which &E
would fail, it is quite unclear why we should baulk at a description which
just ran "Suppose it were the case that 'A and B' is true but 'B' not true
.. .". Second, and more importantly, there appears, in any case, to be a fatal
instability involved in supposing that we might reason, under the suppo-
sition that p, by &E to the conclusion that &E would fail under that sup-
position; if we believed that the argument succeeded, we ought not to
believe it. If this second claim is correct, then it follows, of course-given
that some reasoning by some rule is requirebthat some rule other than
&E must be used.I4
It might be objected that this second claim just overlooks the possibility
that the reasoning in question could proceed by reductio ad absurdum, or
something like it; that is, that we could, assuming for the sake of argument
that &E is reliable in reasoning under the supposition that p , argue, by
applying that rule under that supposition, to the conclusion that it isn't
reliable in reasoning under that supposition, and then, appealing to the
principle: A + -.A i- -.A, conclude that it is not reliable under that suppo-
sition. More generally, if we can show, by reasoning employing a pro-
posed rule R, that R is not guaranteed to preserve truth, why shouldn't we
conclude that R is not guaranteed truth-preserving? On the supposition
that R is reliable, we can show that it is not; so it isn't.
This objection, it seems to me, misses a crucial difference between reg-
ular applications of reductio ad absurdum (or the closely related principle
that A + -.A t -.A) and the case with which we are concerned. When we
argue by reductio to a conclusion -.A, what entitles us to our conclusion is
that we have a valid argument from the supposition that A to a contradic-
tion. Our (continuing) entitlement to the conclusion depends upon our
continuing endorsement of that deduction of the contradiction from the
initial supposition. Any well-founded doubt about the validity of that
deduction would deprive us of our ground for accepting the conclusion.
But this condition is precisely not met, in the present case. If our reasoning
really did show that rule R is not reliable in reasoning under the supposi-
tion thatp, it would show-since we reasoned by R under the supposition
that p--that that very piece of reasoning cannot be relied upon, thereby
l 4 There are two separate points here. The first is that at any rate &E can't be
the only rule involved, the second that it had better not be involved at all. Actually,
it is the first point--that the reasoning must make use of some other r u l e ( s t t h a t
is more important for the argument I am giving at the moment. But the second
point (or, more accurately, a generalisation of it) will be important later.
36 Bob Hale

depriving us of our warrant for the conclusion that R is not reliable in rea-
soning under the supposition that p . Likewise with the conclusion -.A
reached by an application ofA -+-.A t. -.A: our entitlement to the conclu-
sion depends on our entitlement to the premiss A + -.A. Accepting -.A
deprives us, in the present case (though not, of course, in general) of our
ground for accepting A + 1A, and thereby removes our ground for accept-
ing -.A.I5
We may take it, then, that some rule R other than &E is deployed in the
reasoning of case (i). There is no need to speculate about what rule this
could be; assuming the enterprise is coherent, that will clearly depend
upon the exact character of the supposition thatp. But it does not matter,
for our purposes, what rule R is. Nor can it be properly objected that,
before our falsificationist may deploy R, he must first determine whether
its use is good under the supposition that p; for his claim was precisely
that we quite justifiably treat rules as good until they are revealed as bad.
So provided that we have no positive reason to mistrust R, we can use it.
But there's the rub. Granting, for argument's sake, that we have so far
failed to locate any definite supposition under which R cannot be relied
upon to preserve truth, what reason can the falsificationist have, in the
present case, for taking it that it is &E, rather than R, that fails under the
supposition that p? This looks like a fair question, since someone pre-
sented with an appearance that &E fails under the supposition thatp might
elect to stand by &E, declare that something must have gone wrong, and
point the finger of suspicion at R. So long as that is an option, we have no
determinate falsification of &E (or of R, of course). Since it always will
be an option, the whole idea that all rules of inference have merely default
l 5 To guard against a possible misunderstanding, I should emphasize that the
claim I make here does not mean that a rule of inference cannot be, in a certain
sense, self-undermining. Consider, for example, the Crazy Rule: From X, infer A,
which allows us to infer any conclusion we choose from any given set of prem-
isses, including the null set. Since the Crazy Rule allows us to draw any conclu-
sion we wish, we could apply it to obtain, in particular, the conclusion that the
Crazy Rule is not truth-preserving. Thus if the Crazy Rule were truth-preserving,
it would not be; so it is not. There is nothing wrong with this argument, which is
a perfectly good reductio of the supposition that the Crazy Rule is truth-preserv-
ing. But this in no way conflicts with the claim made in the text about the impos-
sibility of showing, by a reductio which uses R under the supposition thatp, that
R cannot be relied upon if used under the supposition thatp. There is no conflict,
because our reductio of the supposition that the Crazy Rule is sound does not use
the Crazy Rule. What it relies upon is not an actual application of the Crazy Rule,
but a claim-the correctness of which can be appreciated without reasoning by
the Crazy Rule itself-about what, if the Crazy Rule were accepted, we could in-
fer by its means. Someone who rejects the Crazy Rule need have no more diffi-
culty is seeing that this claim is correct than an intuitionist logician has in seeing
the correctness of claims about what inferences can be made by means of Double
Negation Elimination.
 On Some Arguments for the Necessity of Necessity 37

acceptability--can be treated as innocent until proven guilty-is a sham,

because there is no such thing as proving a rule guilty.
To this, it may be retorted: "That will indeed be a problem, if you sup-
pose that hypotheses in general, and hypotheses about which rules are
truth-preserving in particular, ought to be determinately falsifiable inde-
pendently of any appeal to pragmatic considerations. But why should we
not just agree that there will be various options open, and let pragmatic
criteria decide which one to go for? So long as such considerations could
favour the verdict that &E fails under the supposition that p, that is
enough."
Must McFetridge's bold venture bog down, short of its destination, in
the swamps of holistic-pragmatic methodology? I do not believe so. To
explain why not, I need to take a small digression, through the other argu-
ment for the necessity of necessity mentioned at the outset. If all goes
well, we shall see that, whilst that argument (i.e. Wright's) does not, as it
stands, establish that any statements must be accepted as necessarily true,
it does provide the resources needed to break the present impasse.

3. Interlude- Wright 's anti-Quine argument

3.1 The argument

Wright's argument (1986, pp. 1 9 2 4 ) is directed against the radical form
of empiricism advocated by Quine, according to which all statements
whatever are subject to revision in response to recalcitrant experience,
with revision in any particular case being a holistic affair essentially
involving the application of broadly pragmatic considerations. It runs as
follows.
Let 8 be some theory we are putting to the test and L our underlying
logic. We derive from 8, using L, various conditional statements whose
antecedents describe observationally checkable initial conditions, and
whose consequents specify observable predicted outcomes. Let I - + P be
any such. A series of observations E will be recalcitrant (more fully, recal-
citrant with respect to 8 + L) if it provides, or appears to provide, grounds
to accept I but reject P,
Quine accepts that faced with E, we should make some adjustment, but
holds that we have many options open. These include:
(1) Replacing 8 by some 8* differing from 8 by omission of one or
more of the statements which figure as premisses in the L-deriva-
tion of I + P
 (2) Rejecting one or more of the L-axioms or rules required for deri-
vation of I + P from 8
(3) Denying that E does, after all, warrant acceptance of I and denial
of P.
Since, however, E's recalcitrance depends upon the conditional I + P
being derivable, using L, from 8 , Quine must-given his claim that all
statements have the status of no more than hypotheses, revisable in the
face of recalcitrant experience-recognise a fourth option, viz. that of
denying that E is, after all, recalcitrant (with respect to our currently
accepted package of theory + logic), even if it warrants denial of I + P,
by way of denying that this conditional is a consequence of that package,
that is, to deny the statement which Wright labels:
(W) 8 i-,I+P
In other words, that E is recalcitrant must be regarded by Quine as no
more than a hypothesis, no less subject than any other hypotheses
involved to assessment and possible rejection via the proper application of
his pragmatic methodology. Wright's argument focuses on the question:
under what circumstances will it be reasonable, by Quine's lights, to
retain As in the case of other available responses, pragmatic consider-
ations should be allowed to determine whether this is a good move. But
how, Wright asks, is that to be determined?
The decisive consideration ought to be, presumably, the degree of
further recalcitrance with which the various alternative courses
tend to be beset. But once the recalcitrance of experience be-
comes . . . a hypothetical matter, the question is transformed into:
how often are the various alternative courses beset by sequences
of experience which, according to the best hypothesis, are recal-
citrant? And now, in order to decide whether recalcitrance is the
best hypothesis, we have to consider how it tends to fare in prag-
matic competition with the alternativesand the beckoning re-
gress is evident. So the official Quinean answer to the question,
when is it reasonable to believe a statement like W, is no answer.
(Wright 1986, p. 193)
Wright's thought, as I read it, may be elaborated as follows: Provided that
it is not a merely hypothetical matter what the consequences (and in par-
ticular, the observationally checkable consequences) of a given combina-
tion of theory and logic 8 + L are, and provided that it is similarly not
hypothetical what the consequences of alternatives 8* + L* are (where 8*
and/or L* are variants on 8 and L), we may make comparative assessments
of 8 + L and 8* + L* in regard to overall simplicity, explanatory power and
whatever else we take to be included among the broadly pragmatic param-
eters against which we think competing theories should be evaluated. In
particular-though the notion doubtless calls for further elucidation and
 On Some A ~ g u m e n t s , f othe
~ ATecessip of H e c e s s i ~ 39

refinement-we can make some comparative assessment of the degrees of

recalcitrance attaching to them; that is, roughly, the extent to which each
clashes with observationally attested phenomena by yielding conditional
predictions whose antecedents appear to be fulfilled, but whose conse-
quents do not. That one of the competitors suffers from a higher degree of
recalcitrance than the others will be a strong (though not necessarily deci-
sive) consideration against it. But decisive or not, relative degree of recal-
citrance will clearly be an essential consideration in pragmatically guided
theory choice.
Now suppose that we treat Wand its kin as mere hypotheses. The irnme-
diate effect, of course, is that any assessment of the relative merits of com-
petitors 0 + L and 0* + L* which we may have made along the foregoing
lines now takes on a provisional character, conditional upon certain claims
like W which we are now viewing as hypotheses. Under different hypoth-
eses about their observational consequences, a comparative assessment
might go quite differently. Further, since E's recalcitrance with respect to
our currently accepted combination 0 + L is contingent upon acceptance
of we are confronted with the further option of retaining that combina-
tion by rejecting Wand thereby dissolving the appearance that E is after
all recalcitrant. To make progress, we need to determine whether we
should retain or jettison JX To do this, we must assess, inter alia, the rel-
ative degrees of recalcitrance involved in combinations respectively
retaining and rejecting W. But any comparative assessment we may make
will again be merely conditional, upon hypotheses about the conse-
quences of the options under consideration. Since all such hypotheses are
in the pragmatic melting pot along with all other statements, we have no
progress-only regress.
3.2 Some doubts about the argurnent answered
As with any regress argument, doubts about the cogency of Wright's argu-
ment will focus on one or other of two questions: Do we really have a
regress? and, if so: Is it vicious? Obviously I cannot anticipate and
respond to every way in which a doubt of one kind or the other might be
raised against Wright's argument. I shall therefore confine myself to what
seem to me to be the most promising counter moves.
Someone might concede that there is a regress, but deny that it is
vicious on something like the following grounds:
The regress would indeed be vicious, if the possibility of con-
structing it showed that Quine's pragmatic methodology [QPM]
cannot be applied to determine what choice to make in any par-
ticular situation of prima facie recalcitrance. It would show this if
it were true that, in order to decide what to do in any given case,
Quine would have to resolve each of an infinite sequence of ques-
40 Bob Hale

tions of the form: Is such-and-such a hypothesis beset with a

higher or lower degree of overall recalcitrance than the other op-
tions available? But QPM does not require us, when confronted
with recalcitrant experiences, to consider all the possible options
which are, in some sense, theoretically open. Given any particular
theory 0, apparently confuted by an E which inclines us to accept
I but reject P, where I -+P is derivable in L from 0, there will be
very many ways of adjusting 0 to some 0* which does not have
this consequence. Most of them, we simply won't have thought
of. QPM doesn't require us to think out all these 0 * ~ v e ifn it
were possible for us to do so (as it surely isn't)--and assess their
relative degrees of recalcitrance. It is, rather, a methodology for
deciding among already given options, viz. the ones which have
actually occurred to us. If further, previously unthought of, vari-
ants on 0 are subsequently suggested, we should evaluate them
(in comparison with options already considered), as and when
they are proposed for consideration. The same applies to other
options, such as adjusting our logic (whilst leaving 0 as it is), so
that I -+ P is no longer derivable from 0, and equally-the crucial
point here-to the option of leaving both 0 and our logic L in
place, but rejecting W.
One point should, I think, be conceded to the above: it would be quite
unreasonable to require the Quinean, when faced with an apparently
recalcitrant train of experience E, to review all possible adjustments to his
currently accepted belief-system which would lead to an accommodation
of E. Rather, as the objector says, QPM is a methodology for choosing
from among some given (typically small, and necessarily finite) collection
of actually proposed options. But this concession does not dispose of the
difficulty. It is true that, once the concession is made, it cannot simply be
assumed that the option of denying recalcitrance by denying some conse-
quence hypothesis such as Wmust be among the range of options actually
up for evaluation. But this does not matter.
To see why it does not matter, suppose that Quine, who has hitherto
subscribed to 0, but has just had recalcitrant experience E, is actually con-
sidering a few options of the type: adjust 0 to e*. And suppose that, after
assessing the pros and cons, he plumps for one of them. In so doing, he
implicitly claims that it is reasonable to move from 0 to this alternative.
Since this would not be reasonable, if E were not recalcitrant with respect
to 0, and that is so only upon the assumption he is taking it that accep-
tance of TV is reasonable. That is, his actual pragmatically guided choice
of adjustment is really conditional upon Ws acceptance.
The point here is not that there may be a further option in addition to
those Quine actually considered, such that, if he had included it for con-
sideration along with the others, he might have come to a different deci-
l6 Something like this response was suggested by my colleague Philip Percival.
 On Some Arguments f o ~
the Necessity of Necessity 41

sion. Nor is it that Quine cannot make his choice of adjustment without
Jirst determining whether or not acceptance of W is reasonable. Of course,
he cannot show that that choice is reasonable without doing that, but that
is a further issue. Nothing stops him just assunzing that acceptance of W
is reasonable. The crucial question concerns, rather, what it is for the
assumption to be reasonable, by Quine's lights. Once claims about the
consequences of a given combination of theory+logic (and hence state-
ments about its attendant degree of overall recalcitrance) are treated as
mere hypotheses, in the pragmatic melting pot along with the rest, there
can no longer be any determinate truth about what degree of recalcitrance
attaches to any theory+logic combination, with the upshot that there is no
target for the pragmatist to aim at.' So whilst the argument, if it succeeds,
does show that QPM is infeasible, this is not because applying it demands
carrying through an infinite process (to the bitter non-end, as it were), but
because it proves to be completely illusory that there is a determinate con-
ception of what a successful adjustment of a belief-system would be, by
pragmatic lights.
Since the point is crucial, it is worth re-stating more fully. Let 0, be the
option of keeping 0 + L and accommodating E by denying W, and let
O,, . .. , 0,be the other options up for consideration. Then acceptance of
W will be reasonable, ceteris paribus, provided that the degree of recalci-
trance attaching to 0, exceeds that of at least one of the 0,.But what
degree of recalcitrance attaches to 0 ,depends upon what its conse-
quences are. This is not determined merely by the rejection of T.f/: O,(i.e.
8 + L + -, W)no more has determinate consequences on its own than does
any of the other combinations of theory+logic under consideration. Its
consequences have to be settled by appeal to some further statement
which, for Quine, can only be a further hypothesis. But which hypothesis?
Since, for different choices of H, we shall get different assessments of the
degree of recalcitrance attaching to O,, + H, we should, presumably, take
that H which minimizes recalcitrance. But the claim that some particular
H (perhaps one among a small range of alternatives actually considered)
minimizes recalcitrance is itself a further hypothesis again, which we may
call H'. H' has its own range of competitors, viz. rival hypotheses about
which of the hypotheses co-ordinate with H minimizes the degree of
recalcitrance besetting 0,; Once again, we should, presumably (and as
always, ceteris paribus), select that one among H' and its rivals which is
l7 This, I take it, is the thought in or underlying Wright's remark:
The moral is that it cannot be a correct account of tlze basis of our confi-
dence in statements like Wthat belief-systems in which they figure enjoy
relative success; if that were the right account of the matter, there could
be no explaining the ~equisitenotion of 'success'.(Wright 1986, p. 193,
emphasis mine)
42 Bob Hale

attended by the lowest degree of recalcitrance. But that in turn is a hypo-

thetical matter, the relevant hypotheses being H and its competitors . . . .
So long as the degree of recalcitrance attaching to hypotheses about con-
sequence is itself held to be a further, hypothetical matter-as it must be,
for Quine-there can be no stepping out of the regress. But unless we can
step out, no determinate degree of recalcitrance attaches to any hypothe-
sis, and in consequence of that, no definite content attaches to the assump-
tion that it is (or isn't) reasonable to retain R18 So none attaches, either,
to the supposition that some one among the original, limited range of
options actually considered (i.e. O,, .. . ,Oh)is "pragmatically best". So the
regress is vicious.
It may be conceded that the crucial question concerns what it is for the
assumption W to be reasonable, by Quine's lights, but denied that he need
answer it in a way that generates the threatened regress. The contrary
appearance, it may be claimed, results from giving a question-begging,
non-pragmatic answer. The Quinean answer should be: any continued
acceptance of any statement historically accepted is, by default, reason-
able, provided adjustments have been made somewhere so as to defuse
what was perceived as recalcitrance. The Quinean background to this
answer is that the pragmatist starts from the status quo: a question of what
it is reasonable to believe only arises for some specified array of options
against the background of an extant web of belief. So judgements of rea-
sonableness are always doubly relative: relative to a background of
assumptions and relative to the options under consideration. The back-
ground of assumptions, being inherited from an earlier stage, is reason-
able by default. So it is false that acceptance of W will be reasonable only
if the degree of recalcitrance attaching to 0, exceeds that of at least one
of the 0,.This answer would be correct only if rejecting W were among
the options being explicitly considered. But if W belongs to the web of
beliefs not considered for revision on this occasion, then its continued
acceptance is reasonable by default.'
This defence rests upon three claims:
(A) The question of what is reasonably believed only arises in regard
to an explicitly mooted set of options concerning what adjustment
(if any) we should make to our total belief-system, faced with
some ostensibly recalcitrant experience, and then arises only
against a background of historically accepted assumptions
(B) The background assumptions are themselves reasonable b,v de-
fault
I s Hence Wright's remark (1986. p. 194) that the Quinean injunction (roughly:
adjust so as to minimize recalcitrance) is "hopelessly impredicative".
l 9 This line of defence was proposed by my colleague Jim Edwards.
 On Some Argun~e~zts
for the Necessity ofLVecessity 43

(C) There is no reason why H'should not be one of these background

assumptions.
It would suffice, to undercut the defence, to reject any one of them. I shall,
however, argue against all three. First, a preliminary point.There is an
obvious prinza facie inconsistency between (A) and (B). (A) seems to
imply that no question can arise as to the reasonableness of background
beliefs, while (B) declares those beliefs to be reasonable, which they can
hardly be if the question of their reasonableness cannot even arise. I take
it that this apparent inconsistency is to be resolved by drawing a distinc-
tion, in effect, between the way or sense in which the background beliefs
are reasonable, on the one hand, and the reasonableness that is in question
in relation to the options actually up for assessment in any given case. The
former are default reasonable, and default reasonableness is not a matter
of being what is best believed, where that is to be assessed by pragmatic
criteria. But the preferred option. among those actually up for evaluation,
is precisely the one which, among those options, comes out tops by prag-
matic ~riteria.~"The apparent inconsistency is to be avoided by reading
(A) as claiming "The question of what is reasonably believed by prag-
nzatic criteria only arises in regard to an explicitly mooted set of options
. . . and .. . only against a background of historically accepted assump-
tions". So, the proponent of this defence is not refusing my question:
"What is it for the assumption of W to be reasonable, by Quine's lights?".
Rather, he is answering it: "It is for it to be default reasonable (as glossed
above)", with the aim of blocking the regress by denying that the correct
answer to the question turns on what would be the result of applying prag-
matic criteria.
I begin with (B). Quine's defender sees that it will not do just to say,
without qualification, that any continued acceptance ofjust any statement
historically accepted is, by default, reasonable. Hence the qualification:
". . . provided adjustments have been made somewhere so as to defuse what
was perceived as recalcitrance". But I do not see how even with the qual-
ification, this can possibly be right, as it stands. Can it really be the case
that retention of a previously accepted hypothesis is default reasonable,
provided sonze adjustmentsno matter ~vhich-have been made to defuse
what was perceived as recalcitrance? Suppose, in some previous situation
of our being confronted with recalcitrance, we made a bad choice-bad,
by Quinean pragmatic guidelines, I mean. (Nothing guarantees that we
never misapply QPM.) We considered options involving rejecting some
l o This assumes, but only for convenience, that pragmatic criteria will deter-
mine a unique best option. If there isn't (i.e. if there are two or more options be-
tween which pragmatic criteria do not decide), then we are free to choose from
among the pragmatically best options, and whichever we choose will be reason-
able.
44 Bob Hale

statement S, but plumped for some other option and retained S. In fact, we
miscalculated; perhaps we over-estimated the overall degree of recalci-
trance attaching to the former options, or under-estimated that attaching
to the option we went for, or perhaps both. We should have dumped S, but
we didn't. But we did make an adjustment somewhere so as to defuse what
was perceived as recalcitrance, so the proviso is met. Does that make our
retention of historically accepted S reasonable by default? How can the
mere fact of historical acceptance make it default reasonable to continue
to accept a statement which we should have previously rejected, and would
have rejected, had we not misapplied Quine's pragmatic directives? In real
life, we have to live with our mistakes, no doubt (at least to the extent that
we cannot undo them), but this does not make them any less mistaken. In
one way, indeed, the comparison with practical affairs is unduly favourable,
for there we are often justified in saying: "We've gone down that road now,
it's too late to turn back and we must just stick to it and make the best of
a bad job"-but we are never, so far as I can see, justified in saying anything
really analogous to this when it comes to theory.
The incorrectness of (A) is a straightforward corollary of the objection
to (B). Ifthe argument against (B) is sound, then there can be cases in which
the continued acceptance of at least some of our historically accepted back-
ground beliefs is reasonable, if at all, not by default but only because, when
the option of rejecting them was previously entertained, they were-by the
proper application of pragmatic criteria-reasonably retained. So the argu-
ment against (B) shows that there can be cases in which at least some of
our historically accepted background beliefs are subject to assessment as
reasonable or not bypragmatic criteria. So, even when (A) is qualified as
I have said it should be, it is false, because it implies that the question of
reasonableness, by pragmatic criteria, can arise only for options explicitly
up for assessment, and not for any background beliefs.
It is true, I think, that this argument only gets us the limited conclusion
that the question of reasonableness-by-pragmatic-criteria (briefly, p-rea-
sonableness) can arise for certain of our background beliefs, those for
which the option of rejection has been previously considered. That is, it
does not follow that the question ofp-reasonableness must arise for all
background beliefs. So someone might, for all that I have argued thus far,
insist on the minimum concession, and say: "Very well, I admit that the
question ofp-reasonableness is properly raised in relation to those of our
background beliefs for which the option of rejection has, as a matter of
historical fact, been actually entertained. But as for the rest of our back-
ground beliefs, the question ofp-reasonableness (as distinct from reason-
ableness simplicter) is out of order and they are simply default
reasonable". This cannot but appear a pretty desperate move, if only
 On Some Avgumentsfor the Necessity of Necessity 45

because it seems just plain wrong to make the admissibility of a question

turn on whether that question has, as it happens, been previously asked.
The argument against (B) shows that a question as to thep-reasonableness
of some statement can be in good order even when none of the options
explicitly proposed explicitly raises that question. What justifies putting
so much weight on the sheer contingency whether the question of a state-
ment's p-reasonableness has previously been raised?
Even this desperate move will, in any case, be futile unless we accept
claim (C), that W may be counted among the background assumptions. As
against this, I think that in any reasonable sense of "historically accepted
background assumption", (C) should be rejected. Wis, recall, a quite spe-
cific statement about one particular (putative) consequence of 8 + L-the
statement I -+ P. Prior to the occurrence of the putatively recalcitrant E,
we need never have considered V! So if the force of the claim that Wis one
of our historically accepted assumptions is that we have previously explic-
itly endorsed that very statement, it will be an entirely contingent matter
whether it holds true. I do not need to deny that cases are possible in which
the claim, so understood, does in fact hold, since I am free to stipulate that
I am concerned with cases in which it does not. If the claim is rather that,
while Wmay not be among those statements we have previously explicitly
considered and endorsed, it is nevertheless to be reckoned among our
background assumptions because it is implied by others which have been
explicitly endorsed, then it is regressive. Its effect is to shift attention to
the further consequence claim-"W is a consequence of such-and-such
explicitly endorsed background assumptions"-which gives rise, at one
remove, to difficulties precisely analogous to those afflicting V!
3.3 What does Wright's argument establish?
The immediate, negative, conclusion Wright draws from his argument is:
the reasonableness, or otherwise, of judgements of recalcitrance
must be exempted from appraisal via the Quinean methodology.
And that must go for the ingredients in such judgements, includ-
ing statements like W . . . . If we are supremely certain of the truth
of at least some such statements, the source of this certainty sim-
ply cannot be accounted for by Quine's generalized holistic mod-
el. The very coherence of the model requires an account of a
different sort. (Wright 1986, p. 194)
I think that Wright's argument entitles him to this conclusion, but I shall
not, here anyway, attempt to furnish further support for that claim, beyond
 '

what I have tried to provide in the preceding sub-section.* Wright himself

makes three further claims. First, he goes on, more positively, to claim:
The right account is ... the obvious one: such statements, or at
least an important subclass of them, admit of totally convincing
prooJ We must, I suggest, take seriously the idea of proof, as a
theoretically uncontaminated source of rational belief, (Wright
1986, p. 194)
By this last phrase, Wright pretty clearly means that the capacity of a suit-
able proof to warrant belief is independent of any claim that is properly
subjected to empirical appraisal. Thus his first further claim is tantamount
to the thesis that suitable proofs can yield a priori knowledge, or at least a
priori warranted belief.22A little later, Wright makes it plain that he thinks
the argument entitles him to claim:
First, . . . that we do possess some sort of concept of logical neces-
sity. Second, the correct account of the basis for the majority of
judgements of logical necessity which we are prepared to make
must make reference to the utterly convincing, self-contained
character of suitable proofs. (Wright 1986, p. 195)
However, as McFetridge observed (1990, p. 149) and as Wright now
accepts, there is a step here-from the immediate negative conclusion and
the first further claim Wright makes to the claims just quoted-which
appears quite unwarranted. It is one thing to accept that we have to regard
a proof as establishing a statement (such as a JV)in a way that is not sub-
ject to holistic appraisal, and quite another to hold that a statement thus
established is necessary. What the argument given shows, at best, is that
we have to accept such statements as established, by suitable proofs, as
true; nothing in the argument demands their acceptance as necessarily

There is also, it should be observed, a g a p t h o u g h , in my view, a much

smaller one-between Wright's immediate conclusion and his first hrther
claim. The immediate conclusion, as first enunciated, is that "the reason-
ableness, or otherwise, of judgements of recalcitrance must be exempted
2 1 McFetridge, though dissatisfied with Wright's argument as an argument for
necessify, agrees that it establishes at least this much (cf. McFetridge 1990, pp.
148-9). Indeed, he thinks it establishes Wright's first further claim.
2 2 That this is a fair gloss on Wright's actual words seems clear from, inter alia,
his critical remarks about "the incoherence of Quine's attempt to 'Duhemise' the
traditional realm of the a priori" (cf. Wright 1986, p. 194).
2 3 I think it is possible to bridge the gap-in effect, between a priority and ne-
cessity-which McFetridge identifies in Wright's argument. But to go into that
here would make too great a distraction from present concerns, so I shall leave the
matter for another occasion. McFetridge diagnosed the gap as resulting from "an
inadequacy in Wright's account of what it is to regard a statement as logically nec-
essa~y",and that his own argument for the necessity of necessity takes its start
from what he regards as a better account of it (cf. McFetridge 1990, p. 150).
 On Some Arguments for the Necessity of Necessity 47

from appraisal via the Quinean methodology. And that must go for the
ingredients in such judgements, including statements like W' (Wright
1986, p. 194). If we read the antecedent of the conditional which comes
soon after (viz. "If we are supremely certain of the truth of at least some
such statements, the source of this certainty simply cannot be accounted
for by Quine's generalised holistic model") as hypothesising rational (as
distinct from merely unshakeable, but perhaps dogmatic) conviction, then
the conditional itself, even if not quite a mere restatement in other words
of the immediate conclusion, is at least a corollary of it. The first further
claim, viz. "The right account is .. . the obvious one: such statements, or
at least an important subclass of them, admit of totally convincing proof'
(Wright 1986, p. 194), evidently presupposes that we are rationally war-
ranted in accepting judgements of recalcitrance (along with such state-
ments as W, on which they depend). I think there can be little doubt that
Wright intended his intermediate claim-"The very coherence of the
model requires an account of a different sort"-to imply that that presup-
position is fulfilled. But that begs the question whether the coherence of
the model requires such an account at all. What if some recalcitrant Qui-
nean agrees that statements of the kind in question must be exempted from
appraisal via the Quinean methodology but denies that their acceptance
can be rationally justified in any other way? What should we say to him?
The first thing that should be said is that this would represent a very sig-
nificant concession, no hint of which is to be found in "Two dogmas . . .".
Not only does it involve abandoning any aspiration that the Quinean meth-
odology might be quite generally applicable; it is directly inconsistent
with one of the most prominent, and most controversial, claims of that
article: viz. that every statement whatever is subject to revision in face of
recalcitrant experience. Further, once it is conceded that certain kinds of
statement must be exempted from the scope of that claim, and from
assessment in the only terms Quine allows, an explanation is called for.
Clearly it would be insufficient explanation for the Quinean to retort that
such statements must be exempted from holistic empirical appraisal,
because the attempt so to appraise them causes that methodology to crash.
So much is obvious enough, but not to the purpose. What is wanted is an
explanation of the principle on which exceptions are to be recognised. It
is quite unclear that, much less how, the Quinean can provide one without
giving the game away, and unclear. too, how he could fight his corner
against an opponent whose less straight-jacketed conception of the vari-
ous means by which statements of different kinds may be rationally sup-
ported enables her to explain both why holistic empirical appraisal is
appropriate to a large but limited range of statements and why it is not
48 Bob Hale

properly applied to others (including many whose acceptance can be war-

ranted a priori by deductive reasoning).
It would be rash to hope that these brief remarks might do more than
indicate one direction in which opposition to Quinean epistemological
holism might be developed. Important as the issue is, I shall not pursue it
further here. Instead, I want to return to McFetridge7sargument and, with
some assistance from the argument of this section, complete my response
to the sceptical challenge we left it facing. As will soon appear, the use to
which I mean to put Wright's argument does not depend upon making
good Wright's positive thesis that statements of logical consequence (and,
in particular, statements like W)can be warranted a priori.

4. The i-esponse to the sceptic completed

The sceptic with whom we were grappling in 52 sought to brush aside the
objection that his professed falsificationism about rules of inference was
fraudulent-because he could give no content to the idea of determinate
falsification of any such rule-by recourse to the idea that he need not be
committed to holding that there can be any such thing as determinate fal-
sification indeperjdently of broadlypragmatic considerations. Once such
considerations are allowed a role in the decision whether to regard a rule
as falsified, he claims, his position can be seen to be a perfectly workable
one.
It should be clear that this move takes us into what is by now familiar
territory. To continue with the example of a supposed falsification of &E,
the suggestion is that in the choice between the options before u s - o f
holding that &E fails under the supposition thatp, and of holding that it is
not &E but R which then f a i l s w e should be guided by consideration of
which option does best across a range of pragmatic desiderata such as
simplicity, economy, overall theoretical unity, etc. Whatever other desid-
erata are to be considered here, one of them will certainly, and crucially,
be minimization of avoidable recalcitrance. Thus whatever other desider-
ata are to be taken into account, and however they are to be weighted
together, one question we shall certainly face concerns the relative
degrees of recalcitrance besetting the options before us. Answering this
question will require us to carry out some reasoning, to ascertain the con-
sequences, respectively, of taking &E to be unreliable under the supposi-
tion that p, and of taking R to be unreliable. There arises, accordingly, a
question about what rules of inference are to be employed in this reason-
ing. And now, it seems clear, the sceptic faces a fresh dilemma. Either this
 On Some Ar.gumentsfor the Necessity ofNecessity 49

reasoning will involve the application of rules other than &E and R, or it
won't. Either way, the sceptic is in trouble.
Suppose, first, that it does, and let R l , . . . ,R,,,be the other rules involved.
Then there will be open to us, in addition to the options of concluding that
&E isn't invariably truth-preserving, and of concluding that R isn't, the
further options of drawing the conclusion that R , is not invariably truth-
preserving (and in particular, fails under the supposition thatp). or that R,
isn't, or .. . or that R, isn't. If we ask: "Why should we stand by these other
rules, and see the shortcoming as lying with one of &E and R?", the
answer, in general terns, has to be that pragmatic considerations favour
this course. But that answer will once again rest upon an assessment of the
degrees of recalcitrance besetting these various options, including the
options of modifying or scrapping one or more of the R,. This assessment
will involve some reasoning .. . . We are at the start of a familiar regress.
Suppose instead that only &E and R are involved in the deduction of the
consequences of rejecting &E. There are three cases to consider, accord-
ing as (a) both &E and R are employed, (b) only &E is used, or (c) only R
is used. Cases (a) and (b) can be dismissed right away; for the reason
already given. the case for rejecting &E will be fatally unstable if it relies
on reasoning in which &E itself is essentially involved. This leaves just
case (c). But this is no good; if R is used, it will always remain an option
to deny that the alleged consequences of rejecting &E really are so, by
way of rejecting R.
I conclude that the proposed falsificationist methodology, if applied to
rules of inference quite generally (including those we might othenvise
view as necessarily truth-preserving), cannot be sustained. It collapses
because it fails to give real content to the idea that rules can be selectively
falsified. The attempt to mitigate that failure by appealing to the idea that
pragmatic considerations might guide selective retention and rejection of
rules breaks down because it leads into a vicious infinite regress of essen-
tially the same character as that disclosed by Wright's argument.
That completes the main argument of this paper. To close, I would like
to return to a limitation on the argument noted earlier and venture a sug-
gestion about how it might be lifted. The limitation is that the argument at
best establishes a general conclusion: we must believe that some rules of
inference are logically necessarily truth-preserving. In and of itself, the
argument does not tell us, concerning any particular rules, that we must
believe them to be necessarily truth-preserving. Is there a way in which
we might advance to some conclusions of that stronger fosm? I think there
may be, a way that makes another connection with Wright's argument, or
more precisely, with the first of the further claims Wright makes, to the
effect that some statements must be reckoned not only to lie beyond the
scope of holistic empirical appraisal but to be capable of being warrant-
edly believed a priori.
If, as I think we should, we accept Wright's second claim, then there is
clearly a good deal more to be said about what the range of a priori war-
rantable statements comprises. Wright's argument singles out a particular
kind of statement as thus assertible, namely: statements about logical con-
sequence. As Wright is careful to point out, our entitlement to assert such
statements of consequence does not depend upon acceptance of the spe-
cific underlying logic L to which they refer. The point may be simply illus-
trated by reference to a classical derivation o f p from ? ~ p :
1 (1) ?--P assn
1 (2) P 1, DNE
An intuitionist, or other logician who rejects DNE, is not thereby pre-
vented from recognising that this is a classically correct derivation, estab-
lishing that l i p t ,p. One might be tempted to infer from this that a priori
recognition of the correctness of consequence statements is entirely inde-
pendent of acceptance of any logical principles whatever. But this temp-
tation should be resisted, as can quickly be seen by considering how, even
if we are intuitionists, we might convince ourselves of the correctness of
the foregoing consequence claim on the basis of the short derivation
above. In recognizing its sole ingredient step as classically correct, we
reason as follows:
In classical logic, if a statement is of the form "-A", the corre-
sponding statement A may be inferred from it as sole premiss,
with the conclusion depending upon whatever assumptions the
premiss depends upon. The statement "lip" is of the form
"11A", and depends upon assumption 1. So, classically, the state-
ment p may be inferred from that premiss, depending upon the
same assumption.
This inference is, of course, entirely neutral with respect to acceptance1
rejection of the principle of double negation elimination. But it is an infer-
ence, by modusponens, and it would seem to follow that to the extent that
we can be warranted, a priori, in asserting that i- ,p, we must be war-
ranted a priori in our acceptance of that principle of inference. This raises
an obvious, and obviously interesting question, namely: just what logical
principles are included in the minimal kit, as it were, needed for (a priori)
appreciation of the correctness of claims about logical consequence (i.e.
claims about what follows from what, relative to a pre-assigned underly-
ing logic)? I think it is clear that this minimal kit will include at least
(some form of) modus ponens (or some principle equivalent to it, at least
in the presence of other minimal principles), and that it will also include
some principle(s) of quantificational inference (such as YE). What else it
 On Some Arguments for the Necessity of Necessity 51

may include is a question I must leave for another occasion.24Meanwhile,

I offer a tempting, albeit tentative, conclusion: whatever the exact con-
tents of the collection of rules of inference we should believe to be
logically necessarily truth-preserving, it will include, at least, moduspon-
ens and universal quantifier elimination (or their equivalents), together, of
course, with any other rules indirectly justifiable by their use.25

Department of Philosophy BOB HALE

The University of Glasgow
Glasgow GI2 8QQ
Scotland
email: R.Hale@philosophy.arts.gla.ac. uk

REFERENCES
Grice, H. P. and Strawson, P. F. 1956: "In Defense of a Dogma". The
Philosophical Review, 65, pp. 141-58.
Hale, Bob 1996: "Absolute Necessities", in James Tomberlin (ed.) Philo-
sophical Perspectives, 10, Metaphysics, pp. 93-1 17.
McFetridge, I. G. 1990: "Logical Necessity: Some Issues", in John Hal-
dane and Roger Scruton (eds.) Logical Necessity & Other Essays
Aristotelian Society Series, vol. 11, pp. 135-541
Quine, W. V. 0 . 1951: "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" in his From a Log-
ical Point of View, Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1953.
Originally published in The Philosophical Review 60, pp. 2 M 3 .
2 4 An interesting question is whether the minimal kit will include some princi-
p l e ( ~ )governing negation, and if so, which. It seems to me that, even if no nega-
tion principles are needed for the ratification of consequence claims of the kind
we're concerned with, acceptance of the principle of non-contradiction may be in-
tegral to operation with the idea that recalcitrance obliges us to make some revi-
sion in our overall corpus of accepted statements. This will carry with it
acceptance of some form of the principle of ren'llctio ad absurdurn-at least a
weak, non-classical version, i.e. from X, A i- B, togethre with I: A 17B, infer X, Y
t 4 - a n d therewith, in the presence of modusponens, acceptance of the princi-
ple of modus tollens, i.e. from X k A+B, together with Yk 7B, infer X , Y t -4.
2 5 Earlier versions of this paper, or parts of it, were presented at a conference
on Modality held in Bled, Slovenia, at a seminar in Cambridge and at the XXth
World Congress of Philosophy in Boston. I am grateful to my audiences on these
occasions, as I am to my colleagues Jim Edwards, Philip Percival and Adam
Rieger. I am particularly indebted to Crispin Wright for many hours of helpful dis-
cussion and much constructive criticism. I should also like to give special thanks
to an anonymous referee for Mind, whose patient, careful and perceptive com-
ments have helped me to write a paper which, though appreciably longer than the
one originally submitted, is at least in other respects greatly improved. Much of
the work was carried out during my tenure of a British Academy Research Read-
ership; I am grateful to the Academy for its generous support.
52 Bob Hale

Wright, Crispin 1986: "Inventing Logical Necessity" in Jeremy Butter-

field (ed.) Latzguage, Mind and Logic. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press 1986, pp. 187-209.
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Bob Hale
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[Footnotes]

10
In Defense of a Dogma
H. P. Grice; P. F. Strawson
The Philosophical Review, Vol. 65, No. 2. (Apr., 1956), pp. 141-158.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108%28195604%2965%3A2%3C141%3AIDOAD%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E

References

In Defense of a Dogma
H. P. Grice; P. F. Strawson
The Philosophical Review, Vol. 65, No. 2. (Apr., 1956), pp. 141-158.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108%28195604%2965%3A2%3C141%3AIDOAD%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E

Main Trends in Recent Philosophy: Two Dogmas of Empiricism

W. V. Quine
The Philosophical Review, Vol. 60, No. 1. (Jan., 1951), pp. 20-43.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108%28195101%2960%3A1%3C20%3AMTIRPT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P

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