Conventionalism and the Contingency of Conventions

Abstract

I. The Challenge: What if our Conventions were Different?Speaking from my own experience, one can't say that Conventionalism about modality is exactly a popular view.However, it has had its share of adherents, and there have been a fair number of attempts to dispose of it.One of the more familiar arguments against modal Conventionalism goes something like this:According to Conventionalism, what is necessary, or essential, is so because of our conventions, our ways of conceiving and/or talking about the world. 1 But our conventions, whatever they are, might have been different.If so, the Conventionalist must admit that what is necessary or essential might not have been so.But, then, it is not really necessary or essential then!So conventionalism is false.

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