WILLIAM G.

LYCAN

REPLY TO HILARY KORNBLITH

(Received 9 March 1994)

Let me begin by conceding Professor Komblith's penultimate point,

about consistency checking. Deductive inference rules cannot figure
very far in that enterprise. (Indeed, it is hard to think up any psychologi-
cally plausible picture of consistency maintenance at all.) So my remark
about the "normal function" of deduction was radically unmotivated
and is probably just false. But let us return to Modus Ponens.
As I said in regard to the McGee counterexample (II), I also have
some sympathy with the "equivocation" objection, and concede that
in one sense it does save Modus Ponens from refutation. However,
Kornblith has failed to note that that objection does not even apply to
the politeness counterexample (I). The politeness argument does not
purport to be a single instance of Modus Ponens; rather, each conjunct
yields an instance of Modus Ponens. And, n.b., though the "real and
envisaged possibilities" parameter shifts between the two conjuncts of
the first premise, it does not even occur in the second premise or in
the conclusion; so there is no shift between premises and conclusion.
Each contained conditional argument is as clearly an instance of Modus
Ponens as anyone might wish.
My remaining problem with Kornblith's commentary is that I do not
understand his suggestion that he and I are locating syntactic/semantic/
pragmatic complexities differently. I do take his more general point: that
the relation between English surface structures and logical formulas is
a matter of considerable delicacy and that in particular cases it usually
affords a variety of theoretical options. But I do not see what alternative
treatment it is that Kornblith wants to oppose to mine.
His example of the temporal reading of 'and' does not help, for
it is not logically parallel to the case of "If . . . . then . . . " and Modus
Ponens: Because the temporal reading of 'and' is logically stronger than

Philosophical Studies 76: 259-261, 1994.

© 1994 KluwerAcademic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
260 WILLIAM G. LYCAN

the truth-functional reading, one can save Conjunction Introduction by

any of several means - e.g., by positing a semantical ambiguity, or by
explaining away the appearance of invalidity in terms of conversational
implicature (the latter would require cancellability). But with the con-
ditional there is no parallel question of a stronger-than-truth-functional
reading that seems to invalidate Modus Ponens, because any condi-
tional stronger than the horseshoe eo ipso preserves Modus Ponens. The
problem is rather that in the relevant respect, my conditional is weaker
than the horseshoe, which is precisely why it does not preserve Modus
Ponens.
Nor, on my view, is there a difference between valid instances of
Modus Ponens and my vauntedly invalid instances that expresses a syn-
tactic or semantic difference in the relation between surface English and
formal logic. According to me, the logical form of A > B is always

(e)eR (In(e,A) ~ In(e,B)),

R being the appropriate class of real and envisaged possibilities; and

what makes the difference between validity and invalidity is the con-
textual value of the parameter. (For the record, I am well aware of the
need for a principled and empirically motivated syntactic route between
surface structure and logical form (Lycan, 1984a). Lycan (1984b) argues
that for conditionals, that route is the standard adverbial syntactic deriva-
tion that relates a locative subordinating conjunction and a relative
clause mentioning special abstract entities, thus:

P where Q = P at any time at which Q.

P where Q = P at any place in which Q.
P if Q = P in any event in which Q.
- Not that the actual syntactic history is unanimously framed or under-
stood, but the assimilation of 'if' to 'when' and 'where' would be agreed
on all sides.)
So my difference between valid and apparently invalid instances of
Modus Ponens rests on purely pragmatic ambiguities, not on anything
about translation or about syntax. My account might be wrong, for as
 REPLY TO HILARY KORNBLITH 261

Komblith and I agree, there are many options. But I do not grant that
"[t]he difference between Conjunction Introduction and Modus Ponens
is surely a difference in degree and not a difference in kind" (p. 252);
and still I am puzzled as to what alternative he has in mind.

REFERENCES

Lycan,W. G. (1984a). Logical Form in Natural Language. Cambridge,MA: Bradford

Books/MITPress.
Lycan,W.G. (1984b). "A SyntacticallyMotivatedTheoryof Conditionals,"in French,T.
E. Uehlingand H. Wettstein(eds.),MidwestStudies in Philosophy, Vol.IX: Causation
and Causal Theories. Minneapolis,MN: Universityof MinnesotaPress.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3125
USA