Are the Laws of Logic Contingent?

Abstract

One question often asked by philosophers is “Might the laws of logic have been different?” That is, are such laws contingent? An affirmative answer to this question in the language of possible world’s semantics would be “There are worlds at which the laws of logic fail to obtain.” For example, our interlocutor here may say that there are worlds at which, say, the conjunction of ‘P ⊃ Q’ with ‘P’ fails to entail ‘Q’ —worlds at which Modus Ponens is invalid. In this paper I’d like to briefly sketch a view which I believe excludes such a possibility. I shall call it the “Worlds-Function View” of the laws of logic. Just why I call it this should become apparent in the proceeding discussion.