Everything about Conventionalism totally explained
Conventionalism is the
philosophical attitude that fundamental principles of a certain kind are grounded on (explicit or implicit) agreements in society, rather than on external reality. Although this attitude is commonly held with respect to the rules of
grammar, its application to the propositions of
ethics, law,
science, mathematics, and logic is more controversial.
Linguistics
The debate on linguistic conventionalism goes back to
Plato's
Cratylus and the
Mīmāṃsā philosophy of
Kumārila Bhaṭṭa.
It has been the standard position of modern
linguistics since
Ferdinand de Saussure's
l'arbitraire du signe, but there have always been dissenting positions of
phonosemantics, recently defended by
Margaret Magnus and
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran.
Geometry
The French
mathematician Henri Poincare was among the first to articulate a conventionalist view. Poincaré's use of
non-Euclidean geometries in his work on differential equations convinced him that
Euclidean geometry shouldn't be regarded as
a priori truth. He held that
axioms in geometry should be chosen for the results they produce, not for their apparent coherence with human intuitions about the physical world.
Philosophy
Conventionalism was adopted by
logical positivists, chiefly
AJ Ayer and
Carl Hempel, and extended to both mathematics and logic. To deny
rationalism, Ayer sees two options for
empiricism regarding the necessity of the truth of formal logic (and mathematics): 1) deny that they actually are necessary, and then account for why they only appear so, or 2) claim that the truths of logic and mathematics lack factual content - they're not "truths about the world" - and then explain how they're nevertheless true and informative.
John Stuart Mill adopted the former, which Ayer criticized, opting himself for the latter. Ayer's argument relies primarily on the
analytic/synthetic distinction.
The French
philosopher Pierre Duhem espoused a broader conventionalist view encompassing all of science. Duhem was skeptical that human perceptions are sufficient to understand the "true," metaphysical nature of reality and argued that scientific laws should be valued mainly for their predictive power and correspondence with observations.
Legal Philosophy
Conventionalism, as applied to
legal philosophy, provides a justification for state coercion. It is one of the three rival conceptions of law constructed by
Ronald Dworkin, the well respected American legal philosopher, in his ingenious work called
Law's Empire. The other two conceptions of law are
legal pragmatism and
law as integrity.
According to conventionalism as defined by Dworkin, a community's legal institutions should contain clear social
conventions relied upon which rules are promulgated. Such rules will serve as the sole source of information for all the community members because they demarcate clearly all the circumstances in which
state coercion will and won't be exercised.
Dworkin nonetheless has argued that this justification fails to fit with facts as there are many occasions wherein clear applicable legal rules are absent. It follows that, as he maintained, conventionalism can provide no valid ground for
state coercion. Dworkin himself favored
law as integrity as the best justification of state coercion.
One famous criticism of Dworkin's idea comes from
Stanley Fish who opines that Dwokin, like the
Critical Legal Studies movement,
Marxists and adherents of
feminist jurisprudence, was guilty of a false 'Theory Hope'. Fish claims that such mistake stems from their mistaken belief that there exists a general or higher 'theory' that explains or constrains all fields of activity like state coercion.
Another criticism is based on Dworkin's assertion that positivists' claims amount to conventionalism.
H. L. A. Hart, as a soft positivist, denies such claim as he'd pointed out that citizens can't always discover the law as plain matter of fact. It is however unclear as to whether
Joseph Raz, an avowed hard positivist, can be classified as conventionalist as Raz has claimed that law is composed "exclusively" of social facts which could be complex, and thus difficult to be discovered.
In particular, Dworkin has characterized law as having the main function of restraining state's coercion.
Nigel Simmonds has rejected Dworkin's disapproval of conventionalism, claiming that his characterization of law is too narrow.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Conventionalism'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://conventionalism.totallyexplained.com">Conventionalism Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
