Inference, Consequence, Implication:

A Constructivist's Perspective*

GORAN SuNDHOuvit

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The dispute within the foundations of mathematics between the classical
conception and its intuitionistic rival can, as is well known, be construed
as a particular instance of the age-old philosophical conflict between re-
alism and idealism ('anti-realism'). The latter conflict was illuminatingly
described two centuries ago by Fichte in terms of the relation between the
human act of knowledge and its object:

act
object.1
A realist—Fichte's pejorative term was dogmatist—determines the human
act of knowledge in terms of the (prior) object towards which it is directed.
The idealist, on the other hand, determines the object in terms of the act.
In the present paper I use this simple picture to provide an overview of some
interrelations and dependencies between the three notions of my title. Of
these, the first—inference—clearly pertains to acts. In recent logic it has
been less often treated of than the other two. Therefore, in particular, I
shall offer an intuitionistic account of the notion of an inference and its
validity.

II
The notions of implication and of consequence belong to the objectual side
of the act-object divide. An implicational proposition has the form

* I am indebted to A. Rabou for generous hospitality, at the Holy Land Foundation,

Nijmegen, during the period that the present paper was written. Conversations with Per
Martin-L6f have had considerable influence on sections 3 and 7. Menno Lievers read the
completed manuscript and suggested a number of improvements.
t Faculty of Philosophy, University of Leiden, Postbus 9515, 2300 RA Leiden, The
Netherlands. sundholm@rullet.LeidenUniv.nl
1
Fichte [1797].

PHILOSOPHIA MATHEMATICA (3) Vol. 6 (1998), pp. 178-194.

 INFERENCE, CONSEQUENCE, IMPLICATION 179

(1) A implies B,
or, in symbols,
(2) ADB.
A consequence (or sequent in the terminology of Gentzen) has the form
(3)Alt...,Ak=>C.
In order to specify matters fully, however, one needs to indicate what the ap-
propriate ranges of substitution are for the schematic letters. Thus, the im-

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plication (1) is a proposition only when A and B are both propositions. In
(3) it is presupposed that the consequent C and the antecedents A\,..., Ak
are all propositions. Natural language readings that have been offered are:
(4) C is true, provided that Ai,...,Ak are all true,
or
(5) if A\,..., Ak are all true, then C is true.
An implication is a proposition, whereas a consequence displays a relation
between propositions. Different notions of correctness apply in the cases of
implications and consequences: an implicational proposition, when correct,
is true, whereas a correct consequence holds. (Just as a proposition can
be logically true, a consequence can, of course, hold logically, that is, come
what may, independently of what is the case.)
It is uncontroversial that an implication is true precisely when the cor-
responding consequence holds (and analogously for the case of logical truth
and logical holding, respectively), that is,
(6) A D B is true if and only if A => B holds.
With the given natural language readings we obtain:
(7) A implies B is true if and only if B is true, provided that A is true,
or, using the reading offered in (5) rather than that of (4),
(8) A implies B is true if and only if, if A is true, then B is true.
The clauses (7) and (8) indicate that more needs to be said about the proper
natural-language rendering of consequences: the verb 'holds' from (6) does
not appear in them, and adding it to the right-hand sides of (7) and (8)
would produce ungrammatical sentences.

Ill
Inference is primarily an act. Traditionally, it is the third of the scholastic
operations of the mind, the other two being those of simple apprehension
and of judgement, respectively. The product of an act of judgement is a
judgement made. An act of judgement can be either mediate or immediate.
An immediate act of judgement is one which results in knowledge that is
grounded in, or rests upon, no further knowledge. Such a judgement made
180 SUNDHOLM

is an axiom, that is, a self-evident judgement, the knowledge of which is

intuitive, rather than discursive. Not every knowable judgement, though,
is a self-evident axiom. Therefore, immediate acts of judgement will not
suffice to demonstrate all that is demonstrable, that is, that can be known.
It is at this point that an exercise of the third operation of the mind, namely
that of reasoning, or inference, is called for. In an act of inference a novel
judgement is made on the basis of other already made judgements, that is,
one acquires new knowledge on the basis of knowledge already obtained.
Thus, the product of an act of inference is of the same kind as the product
of an act of judgement, namely a judgement made: one reasons in order to

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judge, and acts of inference are—mediate—acts of judgement.
An act is essentially agent-related in that it is a process tied to an in-
dividual agent at a certain time, and, in this subjective sense, an act of
mathematical proof is a mental construction, just as Brouwer said. How-
ever, the products of such subjective acts, for instance, a theorem in the
case of an act of mathematical demonstration, or a dish, such as Tourne-
dos Chasseur, in the case of an act of cookery, are objective. An exterior
product, though, be it physical or abstract, is not the only objective aspect
pertaining to the original act as performed by the subject: there is also
what one might call the act in its objective sense, namely, the track, or
trace, of the steps (to be) taken in order to reach the desired goal, that is,
the product in question.2 Thus, the act in the objective sense can be seen as
a blue-print for the carrying out of subjective acts with the relevant prod-
uct. In the mathematical and culinary examples above, the corresponding
act-traces would be written proofs and recipes, respectively, that could be
used for proving the theorem or preparing the dish.
In the scholastic tradition, which my sketch has largely followed so far,
the form of judgement was
(9) 5 is P,
where S and P are terms. Nothing, however, of what has been said so far
depends upon the use of this form of judgement. Accordingly, I avail myself
of the form of judgement that is implicit in current logical systems, both
classical and intuitionistic. It is then unavoidable to return to 'the great
works of Prege'. In his Beghffsschrift Prege used the sign
(10) I- S
to indicate the result of the act of judgement made (public) through an
assertoric utterance of the declarative sentence 5. Such a sentence S ex-
presses a proposition, namely the proposition that S, which proposition
2
I owe the notion of trace to Per Martin-L6f, who introduced it in an unpublished
lecture in Paris, April 1992. Previously, in Sundholm [1983], I made use of the tripartite
distinction of (i) subjective act, (ii) the object of the act, and (iii) the subjective act (i)
considered as an object, with respect to the notion of a mathematical construction. The
act/trace/object triad is applied to several examples in my [1993].
 INFERENCE, CONSEQUENCE, IMPLICATION 181

can be indicated, or 'named', by means of the nominalization

(11) that 5.
A sole utterance of this nominalization does not (in general) effect an act
of assertion, much less one in which the same assertion would be made as
the one made public through a sole utterance of the declarative sentence S.
The simplest way to carry out such an assertion by means of an utterance
containing the nominalization (11) would be to append the predicate phrase
(12) is true,
so that one obtains the complete declarative sentence

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(13) that 5 is true,
a sole assertoric utterance of which does suffice to effect the required act of
assertion. For instance, an utterance of the declarative sentence
(14) Snow is white
can be used to assert that snow is white. An utterance of the nominalization
(15) that snow is white
will not, on its own, serve to make the assertion in question. An utterance
of the completed declarative sentence
(16) that snow is white is true
will so serve, though. Accordingly, the logical form of the assertion (judge-
ment) made in an assertoric utterance of a declarative sentence S will be
taken to be
(17) A is true,
where A is the proposition that 5. The tale just told from (9) to (17) may
serve to explain why Frege and, before him, Bolzano, were led to replace
the traditional subject/copula/predicate form of the judgement made with
their novel form in which truth is ascribed to a propositional content. (I do
not mean to aver that this was their actual route: only that it is a possible
route to the same insight.) In the sequel I shall confine myself mainly to
the case where the logical form of assertoric claims is that of (17), namely
that of an ascription of truth to a propositional content.3
The analysis just given is perfectly general and completely neutral with
respect to the realist/anti-realist dispute.4 Its relevance is not confined to
3
Upon reading the completed manuscript of the present paper, Mr. Menno Lievers,
of Utrecht University, drew my attention to pages 484-486 of Kneale and Kneale [1962]
that offer an analysis very similar to mine.
4
It is hinted at in the distinction between Safcz and Satzradikal that was drawn by
Wittgenstein and used by Stenius ([I960], Ch. IX). Similarly, in terms used by Hare
[1970], one could say that, with respect to the speech act of making an assertion through
an utterance of the declarative (14), the nominalization (15) indicates the phrastic, and
the declarative sentence (16) makes explicit not only the phrastic element, but the tropic
as well. The neustic, of course, is made explicit in the being asserted of the assertion in
question.
182 SUNDHOLM

the writings of Frege, but the consequences for Frege's philosophy of logic
have to be left for another occasion.
In the course of steps from (9) to (17), I started out by considering judge-
ments and ended up with a claim concerning the form of assertions. This
is not accidental; Frege viewed the act of assertion as the exteriorization
of the interior act of judgement. Also the scholastics regarded a written or
spoken assertion made as the exterior sign of the (mental) judgement made.
Thus I shall continue to speak of judgements or assertions indiscriminately.

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A judgement J, in general, and one of the form (17) in particular, need not
be asserted (need not have been made). The locution
(18) a judgement of the form A is true which has not yet been made,
for instance, makes good sense. We can follow the scholastics in calling
(17) an enunciation, whether asserted or not, and an assertion only when
asserted, in order to avoid the awkwardness of formulations such as 'an
unasserted assertion'.5
How are judgements explained? In order to answer this question let us
consider the analogous task of recognizing a speech act as an assertion:
How is assertoric force made present?
There is no uniform answer to this question: the consideration of examples
well known from the theory of speech-acts, such as that of an assertion made
by means of asking a question, etc., makes this plain. However, a 'post-
factum' criterion for the identification of assertoric force can be given. An
assertion must allow for counter-questions such as:
'How do you know that this is so?'
'Why do you claim that? What are your grounds?'
From the required legitimacy of the counter-questions, we see that an as-
sertion contains a knowledge-claim. Accordingly, we explain the judgement
(enunciation) in terms of what one has to know—what one has to have
done—in order to have the right to make an assertion by means of an ut-
terance of the enunciation in question. Thus a judgement (enunciation,
assertion) is explained in terms of its assertion-condition. The mere lay-
ing down of such a condition, however, in no way guarantees that it can
be met, whence the notion of a judgement not yet made—an unasserted
enunciation—makes perfect sense. Furthermore, the explanation of the no-
tion of judgement is completely general and not at all confined to those of
the form (17).
5
Michael Dummett ([1994], p. 324) took me to task for contemplating unconstructed
constructions (better: unexecuted constructions) in my [1994b]. He compared construc-
tions to houses: 'There must, therefore, exist constructions that have not been carried
out, whereas there do not exist houses that have never been built.' Here I beg to differ:
there are lots of houses that have never been built—in a certain sense architectural mu-
seums are full of them: witness the titles of such architectural books as Unbuilt Oxford
or Buildings: Built, Unbuilt, Unbuildable.
 INFERENCE, CONSEQUENCE, IMPLICATION 183

This explanation of what a judgement is, in terms of the knowledge

required in order to have the right to make it, also makes plain that an
act of judgement, namely the act in, or through, which one acquires the
knowledge in question, is nothing but a demonstration, that is, an act
of proof. We obtain the following summary elaboration of the Fichtean
diagram from section I above:
knowing
judgement
act of assertion judgement known

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demonstration assertion made
theorem proved

IV
Above it was noted that the product of an act of reasoning is a judgement
made and, accordingly, that acts of inference could best be seen as mediate
acts of judgement. The typical structure of the trace of such a mediate act
of judgement in several steps can be pictured in the following way:

J9
An act of inference is a particular act of passage from one level to the
next in the process given by the trace in question, such as the J3-J4-J6
part that has been singled out in the act-trace tree above. In complete
generality, an inference(-trace) I has the form:

Ji...Jk

The judgements J\... Jk are the premisses of the inference / and its con-
clusion is the judgement J. When the premisses and conclusion have the
standard form (17) the inference / has the form /':
184 SUNDHOLM

A\ is true... Ak is true
C is true
The appropriate notion of correctness for inference is that of validity. In
the realist tradition from Bolzano onwards, through Wittgenstein's Tracta-
tus and Tarski, up to modern model theory, the validity of / ' has been re-
duced to the—logical—holding of the consequence between the propositions
that serve as contents of the judgements that are, respectively, the premisses
and the conclusion of the inference. This reduction is very much in the spirit

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of Bolzano's reduction of correctness for a judgement made: a judgement
of the form (17) is correct—'richtig'—when the proposition(al content) A is
true. Judgemental correctness is thus brought back to propositional truth
and a judgement with true content is said to be an 'Erkenntnis'—a piece
of knowledge.6 In terms of the Fichtean picture from section I above, the
correctness of acts of judgement and of inference is expressed in terms of
their prior objects. This, of course, is just what one should expect from a
realist position.
These realist reductions of the correctness notions for judgements and
inferences to the corresponding notions of propositional truth and logical
holding for consequences among propositions, pleasingly straightforward
though they are, have unpalatable effects. In particular, they do admit
blind correct judgement and blindly valid inference. Thus, for example,
if by fluke I happen to hit the bull's eye when I assert (out of the blue)
that the number of panes in the stained-glass windows of St. John's Cathe-
dral at Bois-le-Duc is 736 958, in spite of its being correct, I can hardly
be said to know this without actually having counted, or having seen the
calculations of costs made by the glass-setters, etc. On the Bolzano ex-
planation, however, my assertion out of the blue, would have to be said
to be correct—would have to be said to be knowledge—strange though it
may seem. Similar examples can be given to illustrate the phenomenon of
blindly valid inference, when the validity of an inference is reduced to the
(logical) holding of the corresponding consequence. I, for one, consider this
circumstance a grave defect of the Bolzano reductions and prefer to search
for other means of elucidating the notion of inferential validity.
The dialectical neutrality of the paper has now been abandoned. In the
last few paragraphs the tension between the realist and idealist positions
is brought to the fore. The realist adheres to an ontological reduction of
epistemological matters. This, however, is unacceptable to the anti-realist.
My own sympathies lie with the latter.

6
In other words, on this realist view, the Satz assertion is correct if the Satzradikal
is true. The identification of an Erkenntnis with a correct judgement can be found in
Bolzano ([1837], §§34, 36).
 INFERENCE, CONSEQUENCE, IMPLICATION 185

V
Before attempting a constructivist elucidation of the notion of inferential
validity, I still have to offer the promised elaboration of the difficulties
concerning the natural-language reading of the sequents signaled at (6) and
(7). The difficulty in question concerned the disappearance of the tropical
term 'holds', which, even though present at (6), is absent from the natural-
language renderings (7) and (8). A moment's reflection, however, reveals
that something of the same sort is already at hand in the natural-language

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renderings (4) and (5) of the sequent (3): in it a certain relationship on the
level of content is set out, whereas the natural-language renderings of this
relationship contain the tropical sign 'true'. Accordingly, on the readings
(4) and (5), the tropical sign 'holds' in (6) is superfluous. Thus, on the
equivalent readings (4) or (5), what is being specified is not so much the
notion of a consequence, but rather that of a proposition being true under,
or in the context of, certain assumptions. The use of the hypothetical
notion of truth
(20) _ i s true, provided that Ai,...,Ak are all true
gives rise to an elaboration of the standard form of judgement (17).7 It
should be noted here that what is put in place of the blank in (20) has to
be a proposition. An attempt to insert, for instance, the declarative (14)
will only produce ungrammatical nonsense such as:
(21) Snow is white is true, provided that that grass is green is true,
which contains one main verb too many. The proposition (15) fits though:
(22) That snow is white is true, provided that that grass is green is true,
is grammatical but not idiomatic.8 Similar points also apply to the natural
language conditional
(23) If _ , then
Here it is imperative that the blanks are filled with Sk'tze (declaratives) and
not their Radikale (nominalizations):
(24) If snow is white, then grass is green,
7
The order of the assumptions is not material in the case of (20). An order is forced
upon us in virtue of the fact that if one has to list several elements, the linearity of
language will inevitably impose an order upon the list. The equivalent formulation
is true under the assumptions that A\ is true, . . . , that Ak is true
perhaps makes this clearer.
C is true under the assumptions that A is true and that B is true
means the same as
C is true under the assumptions that B is true and that A is true.
8
I am indebted to the Editor for pointing out that (22) and similar examples are
unidiomatic. The offensive iterations of 'that' can be eliminated, however, using either
the transformation
That S is true = It is true that S,
or through the insertion in 'that that' of 'the proposition'.
186. SUNDHOLM

makes perfect sense, but

(25) If that snow is white, then that grass is green,
does not. We then need to step to
(26) If that snow is white is true, then that grass is green is true,
in order to restore grammatically.9 With respect to
(27) _ implies • • • ,
the roles are exchanged. Here

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(28) That snow is white implies that grass is green,
does make sense as a declarative, whereas
(29) Snow is white implies grass is green,
which sentence contains too many verbs, does not.
In order to resolve the difficulties with respect to the natural language
renderings of (3), what is needed is an expression for an entity on the
phrastic level, that is, an expression which takes a number of propositional
nominalizations and yields a phrastic to which the tropical predicate 'holds'
can be applied. For a first attempt consider:
(30) C is a consequence of A\,..., Ak,
where Ai,...,Ak and C are propositions, or a variant of this using 'follows
from' in place of 'is a consequence of'.10 This, however will not work, since
(30) is a completed sentence, whence its explicit analysis does not lie on the
level of phrastics, but on that of phrastics cum tropics: it is a Satz rather
than a Satzradikal. Accordingly, what is called for is an extra subordinating
'that' in front of the proposal offered in (30):
(31) that C is a consequence of A\ and... and Ak,
which does leave us at the desired phrastic level. Stepping over to declara-
tive nominalizations in the now familiar manner yields
(32) that that S is a consequence of that S\ and... and that Sk,
where the extra subordinating 'that' ensures that we obtain an expression
that will meaningfully fill the blank in tropical
... holds.
Applied to an example we have
(33) that that snow is white is a consequence of
that grass is green and that policemen wear helmets holds.
9
This circumstance is not without significance for the evaluation of proposals within
the theory of conditionals.
J° Here, a presumption of order is built in using the numbering of the antecedents. In
order to make this explicit in the natural-language formulation, it is useful to insert 'and'
an appropriate number of times.
 INFERENCE, CONSEQUENCE, IMPLICATION 187

This last example (30)-(33), while formally in order, is hardly elegant. A

perhaps better attempt is
(34) the consequence from Ai,..., Ak to C,
which leaves us where we want to be. An adequate English rendering of
Bolzano's Ableitbarkeit is surprisingly difficult to find. The term 'conse-
quence', for instance, has mainly acquired logical citizenship as part of the
predicate phrase 'is a consequence of and using it for expressing the rela-
tionship between antecedent(s) and consequent, irrespectively of whether

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it holds or not, might strike us as awkward. Accordingly, the use of
(35) the consecution of the consequent C from the antecedent(s)
Ai,...,Ak
might be preferable. The exact translation—'derivability'—has found other
uses in modern logic. Similarly, 'entailment' has been claimed by relevance
logicians for their own devices and it does not seem wise to encroach upon
their territory. Of these alternatives, on balance, I opt for the simplest,
that is, (34). Another, and perhaps the most elegant, way to account for
the order of the antecedents in (closed) consequences is to use—possibly
iterated—'if-then' clauses, restricted to one antecedent only.
(36) If Si, thenS 2 l
still does not yield what we need since 5"i and S2 are Sk'tze rather than
Satzradikale. Stepping over to the phrastics in the now familiar manner
gives:
(37) If that Si is true, then that S2 is true,
and we obtain a phrastic expression for the whole consequence through
nominalization:
(38) that if that Si is true, then that S2 is true,
or, for propositions,
(39) that if Ai is true, then A2 is true.
Multiple antecedent consequences are accounted for through iteration:
(40) that if Ai... ,Ak are true, then C is true,
etc. The form of judgment is then obtained by appending 'holds' to (39):
(41) that if Ai is true, then A2 is true holds.
The reading of the proper scope of that in (41) is slightly awkward, and it
might be better to use a prefix form:
(42) It holds that if Ai is true, then A2 is true,
or in the corresponding formulation on the level of Satze:
(43) It holds that if that Si is true, then that S2 is true.
Thus we have two types of consequence, namely open, or dependent, con-
sequences of the form
188 SUNDHOLM

(44) the proposition C is true,

provided that the propositions Ai,...,Ak are all true
and (closed) consequences of the form
(45) the consequence of C from Ai,...,Ak-
Of these, (44) is a complete enunciation—on the level of phrastics cum
tropics—which can be asserted as it stands, whereas (45) requires saturation
with the tropical predicate 'holds' in order to yield a complete enunciation.
Accordingly we have here a novel form of judgement, namely,

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(46) Q holds,
where Q. has the form (45).
In conclusion to this section V let it be noted that it has been entirely
neutral with respect to the realist/anti-realist issue.

VI
I now turn to a constructivist semantics, namely that offered by Per Martin-
Lof, for the notions involved in (44) and (45), in the course of his rigorous
elaboration of Heyting's meaning explantions for the intuitionistic logical
constants.11
A proposition is construed as a set of proof-objects. A set is explained
by laying down how its canonical elements are formed and when two such
elements are equal. Thus, for instance, A D B is a proposition, when A and
B are both propositions. The type Proof(.A D B) is a set, with as canonical
elements
Dl(A,B,(x)b)),
where 6:Proof(jB), provided that i:Proof(^4).
When b meets this condition and a:Proof(A), then
{{x)b){a)=b\a/x\.B.
When a is a general concept
(47) a exists
is a judgement (enunciation). It can be made as soon as some judgement
(48) a:a
has been made, that is, in order to have the right to make the judgement
(47) one must know some judgment of the form (48). For a given proposition
A we then put:
(49) A is true = def Proof(A) exists.12
II
[1984] and subsequent works, for instance, [1983], [1987], [1991], [1994], and [1995].
12
It is only at this point, with the use of a constructive notion of existence, that the
semantics takes a definite constructive slant. The construal of propositional truth as
existence of a truth-maker does not automatically yield a constructive theory of truth,
 INFERENCE, CONSEQUENCE, IMPLICATION 189

An open consequence demands not a categorical proof-object, but a de-

pendent one: we have the right to make the judgement (44) when we have
found an object
(50) c:C, provided xiiAi,... ,Xk'-Ak-
We have the right to make the judgement (50) when we are entitled to infer
according to the rule
(51) a\\A-\ ... aic'-Ait
c[ai/xi,...,ak/xk]:C'

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where the substitution in the conclusion is simultaneous.
In the case of (45), the closed consequence is associated with a certain
function-type, namely the type of its verification(-objects):
(52) Verifier {A => B) = def (Proof(yl)) Proof(B).
In the case of closed consequences ft(=def (^i> • • • >^fc) => C), with more
antecedent propositions than one, the general formulation is
(53) Verifier(ft) = def (Proof(Ai),..., Proof(Afc))Proof(C).
Finally, a consequence f2 holds if its type of verification-objects is inhabited:
(54) ft holds = Verifier(ft) exists.
Both propositions and consequences are explained in terms of verification-
objects. The verification-objects for a proposition A form a set Proof(A).
The corresponding Verifier(ft) for a consequence ft is in general not a set,
but only a type. Thus, consequences are not propositions, but generaliza-
tions of propositions. In both cases, however, the truth, respectively, the
holding, is explained as the existence, or being inhabited, of a certain type
of verification-object.

VII
It now remains to deal with the notion of an inference and its validity, and
finally to determine the conceptual priorities between implication, conse-
quence and inference. Consider an inference I of the form
J\ • • • Jk
J '
What is it for / to be valid? When the form / was specialized to that of /':
A\ is true... Ak is true
C is true
Bolzano, and many with him, proposed the reduction to an open conse-
quence (44):

but depends on the logical properties of the notions used in formulating the theory in
question. I have treated of these matters, at some length, in [1993], [1994], [1994a], and
[1997].
190 SUNDHOLM

(55) The inference / ' is valid if and only if C is true,

provided that the propositions A\,..., Ak are all true,
but as we saw above this allows for the possibility of blindly valid inference.
It is therefore incumbent upon us to improve on this Bolzanian reduction.
It is a basic intuition that an inference I should be 'truth-preserving'.
This gives rise to two questions:
(i) What notion of truth (for which notion of truth-bearer) has to be pre-
served?
(ii) What is the appropriate notion of 'preservation'?

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The truth-bearers in question cannot be propositions, since then (the blind
validities of) the Bolzano-reduction would result. Also, the premisses and
conclusion of an inference(-trace) are not propositions, but judgements
that, in the standard case of inference /', contain the notion of preposi-
tional truth. Accordingly, the relevant truth-bearers are judgements, so
clearly the apposite notion of truth is that of truth for judgements. I follow
Martin-Lof who distinguishes two notions of truth with respect to judge-
ments. Recall that a judgement is explained in terms of the knowlege one
has to gain in order to have the right to make it. When the judgment is
known, its truth is actual. The notion of actual truth applied to a judge-
ment is subjective, since it is tied to a knowing subject at a certain time.
The corresponding objective notion is that of potential truth: a judgement
is potentially true when it can be known. Thus potential truth coincides
with knowability.13 This is not the only option: we can also say that a judg-
ment is potentially true when it is demonstrable, assertible, evidenceable,
warrantable, justifiable, and so on. These alternatives, though, all come to
the same thing: the evidence theory is the proper theory of objective truth
for judgments.
With respect to question (ii), preservation of knownness—actual truth—
is out of the question, since then every inference with unknown premisses
would be valid. Thus, the only candidate here is preservation of potential
truth, or knowability. We must inquire into the properties of the locution
(56) The inference I is valid if and only if the conclusion J is knowable,
provided that the premisses Ji,..-,Jk are knowable.
This formulation is equivalent to
(57) The inference / is valid if and only if the conclusion J is knowable,
provided that the premisses Ji,...,Jk are known.14
In one direction, from (56) to (57), there is no effort. Assume, namely,
that the judgements J i , . . . , Jfc are known. Therefore they are obviously
13
See Martin-L6f [forthcoming].
14
Per Martin-Lof pointed this out to me.
 INFERENCE, CONSEQUENCE, IMPLICATION 191

knowable—ab esse ad posse valet consquentia. So by (56) J is know-

able. Accordingly, J is knowable, provided that the premisses J\,..., Jk
are known.
For the other direction, from (57) to (56), assume that the premisses
J i , . . . , Jit are knowable. This means that J\,..., Jk can be known. Thus,
also J can be known, because J is knowable, when J\,..., J/- are known
according to (57). But the latter can be known, and so it can be that J
can be knowable. But if something can be knowable, then it can be known.

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Preservation of truth thus boils down to the task of seeing that the con-
clusion J can be known upon the assumption that the premisses Ji,...,Jk
are known. This notion of assumption that is used here is not the famil-
iar one which is well known from natural-deduction formulations of logic.
There an assumption takes the form
proposition A is true
and what is established is that a (possibly the same) proposition is true un-
der the assumption(s) in question.15 Here, on the other hand, one assumes,
not that a proposition A is true, but that the truth of A is knowable, that
is, that an enunciation (judgement) of the form
A is true
is knowable.16 The difference can be formulated in terms of natural-deduc-
tion formalizations as that between assuming the formula Q (in order to
apply implication introduction) and assuming that one has a closed deriva-
tion of Q (that is, assuming that Q is derivable).
Finally, then, how do we preserve knowability from known premisses?
Some inferences, such as the standard introduction- and elimination-rules
are such that their conclusion can be made evident immediately upon
knowledge of the premisses, in terms of the concepts out of which the pre-
misses and the conclusion have been put together. The validity of such
inferences rests solely upon the meanings of their terms. They are concep-
tually analytic in the sense of Kant: the truth of the conclusion is contained
in that of the premisses. The scholastics would here use the tags per se
nota and ex vi terminorum. The preservation required for validity is now
assured by means of a chain of such immediately evident inferences (and, if
and when needed, immediately evident axioms) from the premisses to the
conclusion.
When such a chain can be found, we may call the inference potentially
15
See my [1997] and [forthcoming] for a discussion of the semantical interpretation of
natural deduction proof-trees.
16
The distinction between these two types of assumptions is generally ignored, from
Meinong onwards. It seems to me of some relevance for a proper formulation of the
theory of conditionals. In particular, the so-called Ramsey test clearly makes use of
epistemic assumptions that judgements are known, rather than of alethic assumptions
that propositions are true. See also footnote 8 above.
192 SUNDHOLM

valid. The potential truth of the premisses and the potential validity of the
inference together guarantee that the conclusion can be known. In order to
know the conclusion in act, though, this potential validity is not enough.
In order to carry out the mediate act of judgement—in order to draw the
inference from the (known) premisses—one needs the actual validity of the
inference in question: one actually has to have found a chain of immediate
evidences, linking premisses and conclusion, and the act of inference consists
in running it through from the premisses and axioms, thereby making the
conclusion known.

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VIII
My final topic is the order of priority between the notions in question.
In classical logical theory the validity of the act of judgement/inference is
reduced to the correctness of the relevant product. The correctness of a
judgment made is then reduced to the propositional truth of its content.
Thus, propositional truth is the key notion of classical logic. On the con-
structive view that I have been concerned to explore in the last few sections,
the priorities run in the opposite direction. The truth of an implication and
the holding of a (one-antecedent) closed consequence are both reduced to
a certain dependent judgement, that is an open consequence, concerning a
dependent proof:
(58) b:B, provided that x:A.
This dependent judgement, in its turn, is reduced to the inference rule
(59) a:A. Therefore b[a/x]:B.
In other words, the judgement (58) is correct when inferences of the form
(59) are valid. On this view, then, not the truth of the content, but the
validity—or Tightness—of the act is the basic notion, the axis around which
logic revolves.17 That this should turn out to be the case, however, is just
what one would expect, in view of the Fichtean vision that served as my
point of departure, and yields a further confirmation of the fundamental
insight embodied therein.

17
In order to avoid a possible misunderstanding, let me note that Martin-Lof's [1987]
notion of the validity of a proof is not the same as the notion of validity that I have
considered. His notion is more fundamental one, and is obtained by applying the notion
of Tightness to proofs: a valid (right, true, real,...) proof is one where every axiom
used really is true and every inference drawn really is valid, where the validity of an
inference is taken in the sense of the present paper. An inference-figure (trace) stands to
its validity as a judgement stands to its evidence: a judgement is (potentially) true when
it can be made evident and an inference is (potentially) valid when a chain of immediate
evidences can be found that links the premisses with the conclusion.
 INFERENCE, CONSEQUENCE, IMPLICATION 193

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194 SUNDHOLM

ABSTRACT. An implication is a proposition, a consequence is a relation between

propositions, and an inference is act of passage from certain premise-judgements
to another conclusion-judgement: a proposition is true, a consequence holds,
whereas an inference is valid. The paper examines interrelations, differences,
refinements and linguistic renderings of these notions, as well as their history.
The truth of propositions, respectively the holding of consequences, are treated
constructively in terms of verification-objects. The validity of an inference is
elucidated in terms of the existence of a chain of immediately evident steps linking
premises and conclusion.

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Books of Essays

BARBARA HERRNSTEIN SMITH and ARKADY PLOTNITSKY, editors.Mathe-

matics, Science, and Postclassical Theory. Durham, N. C, London:
Duke University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8223-1857-1 (cloth), 0-8223-1863-6 (paper).
Pp. 279. Up to page 242 is a reprinting of South Atlantic Quarterly 94, No. 2.
AUTHORS AND TITLES
BARBARA HERRNSTEIN SMITH and ARKADY PLOTNITSKY, Introduction: Networks
and symmetries, decidable and undecidable, pp. 1-16.
BRIAN ROTMAN, Thinking dia-grams: Mathematics, writing, and virtual reality,
pp. 17-39.
ANDREW PICKERING, Concepts and the mangle of practice: Constructing quater-
nions, pp. 40-82.
OWEN FLANAGAN, The moment of truth on Dublin Bridge: A response to Andrew
Pickering, pp. 83-89.
ANDREW PICKERING, Explanation, agency, and metaphysics: A reply to Owen
Flanagan, pp. 90-94.
MICHEL CALLON and JOHN LAW, Agency and the hybrid collectif, pp. 95-117.
SUSAN OYAMA, The accidental chordate: Contingency in developmental systems,
pp. 118-133.
ARKADY PLOTNITSKY, Complementarity, idealization, and the limits of classical
conceptions of reality, pp. 134-172.
E. ROY WEINTRAUB, IS "IS a precursor of" a transitive relation?, pp. 173-188.
MALCOLM ASHMORE, Fraud by numbers: Quantitative rhetoric in the Piltdown
forgery discovery, pp. 189-211.
JOHN VIGNAUX SMYTH, A glance at sunSet: Numerical fundaments in Frege,
Wittgenstein, Shakespeare, Beckett, pp. 212-242.
BARBARA HERRNSTEIN SMITH, Microdynamics of incommensurability: Philosophy
of science meets science studies, pp. 243-266.