Hannes Leitgeb: 'On Merely Expressive Devices. Logical Empiricism Revived'
In this talk I will develop a semantics for merely expressive devices: linguistic expressions that help us to express propositions (thoughts) but which do not at the same time contribute to the truth conditions of the propositions thereby expressed. Logical operators constitute paradigm case examples of merely expressive devices, but I will argue that there are many further merely expressive devices, including stipulatively defined terms, operators for metaphysical necessity and the counterfactual if-then, and more. Ultimately, the semantics will hopefully throw new light on various important philosophical topics, such as analyticity, deflationism, the metaphilosophical status of logic and metaphysics, and the prospects of reviving some of the themes of logical empiricism.
