Subjunctive Conditionals by Stuart HampshireReview by: Charles A. BaylisThe Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Sep., 1949), p. 203Published by: Association for Symbolic LogicStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2267098 .

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REVIEWS 203

lar device is part of each statement within a deductive system, that the statements con-

stitutive of such a system are not such necessary formulas as "pq v q" but such statements

as " F pq v q". The former is a necessary statement but it does not entail or necessitate

other statements such as "pp D p". Its membership in a system, indicated by the assertion

sign, does however necessitate the membership in the system of "pp v p".

Similarly, Strawson explicitly rejects the view that Hampshire would force on him that

necessary formulas do not express propositions (p. 193). CHARLES A. BAYLIS

P. T. GEACH. Necessary propositions and entailment-statements. Ibid., pp. 491-493.

The author criticizes sharply Strawson's use of quotation marks with variables and pro-

poses a simpler and more satisfactory device for distinguishing between an expression and

its name. He charges that even in simple cases, Strawson's view as to the deduction of one necessary

proposition from another is demonstrably wrong. This charge is based on understanding

Strawson to mean by "is necessary" "is to be read as necessary by convention." Geach's

argument is sound only if Strawson's meaning is as stated. But if Strawson does not accept

the equivalence Geach proposes, it is incumbent upon him to state much more clearly than

he does what he does mean by calling an expression "necessary." CHARLES A. BAYLIS

STUART HAMPSHIRE. Subjunctive conditionals. Analysis (Oxford), vol. 9 no. 1 (1948), pp. 9-14.

The author's concern here is with singular subjunctive conditionals, e.g.: "If Hitler had

invaded England in 1940, he would have captured London." "If Mr. Jones's wife had not

put arsenic in his soup, he would not have died as he did." In spite of the recent work of

Lewis, Chisholm, Goodman, and others, Mr. Hampshire seems to assume that general sub-

junctive conditionals can always be expressed adequately as scientific generalizations in the

indicative. Singular subjunctive conditionals, he points out, are commonly used in moral,

legal, and historical judgments, in statements about a given individual's dispositions, and

in phenomenalistic analyses of statements about material objects. But, he urges, since they

are concerned with particular contrary-to-fact cases, they are in principle unverifiable and

Anfalsifiable. We cannot in such cases, he says, apply even in theory tests which are final

and decisive. He suggests that we therefore call such conditionals, not scientific "statements"

but rather "judgments" or "interpretations," and that we extend the verification principle

to cover their characteristic indefiniteness. Mr. Hampshire seems to be demanding too much in asking for tests that shall be "final

and decisive." Does the verification principle require more than confirmatory or discon-

firmatory tests that will yield probable knowledge? More important, his specific problem

seems a spurious one. Must he not admit that if we are to have any knowledge of an empirical

singular contrary-to-fact conditional, it can only be because it is a case of a kind of which

we do have some knowledge? Is not the real problem the one of specifying ways in which we

can obtain knowledge of the existence and nature of general empirically necessary connec-

tions? CHARLES A. BAYLIS

STUART HAMPSHIRE. Logical necessity. Philosophy, vol. 23 (1948), pp. 332-345. The author attempts "to state simply" the meaning implicit in the "common use" of

"many contemporary philosophers" of such terms as "logically necessary." "To say that

two propositions, P and Q, are necessarily connected logically is equivalent to saying the

'P and not Q' is an impossible expression;-impossible because it is meaningless."

He urges that in the language of mathematics, the meaning of its symbols is "completely

stated in the axioms and definitions which are the rules of syntax of the system." Any true

statement of logically necessary connections can be shown to follow from these axioms and

definitions. In the case of ordinary language, there is no such court of final appeal. We can

ascertain the meaning of an expression only "by observing and comparing the situations in

which this expression is used." In either case, a statement of a necessary connection is a

rule governing the meaningful use of expressions, in the former as prescribed by the axioms

and definitions, in the latter as implicit in ordinary usage. Logical principles are rules which

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