Abstract
The classical analysis of relevance in probabilistic terms does not fit legal, moral or conversational relevance, and, though analysis in terms of a psychological model may fit conversational relevance, it certainly does not fit legal, moral or evidential relevance. It is important to notice here that some sentences are ambiguous between conversational and non-conversational relevance. But, if and only ifR is relevant to a questionQ, R is a reason, though not necessarily a complete or conclusive reason, for accepting or rejecting something as an answer toQ. Reasons of this kind are governed by appropriate covering laws or principled probabilities and a number of questions thus arise about the relationship between relevance and certain formal-logical properties.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anderson, J. R. and N. Belnap: 1975,Entailment: the Logic of Relevance and Necessity, Vol. 1, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.
Aristotle: 1890,Nicomachean Ethics, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Carnap, R.: 1950,Logical Foundations of Probability, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.
Cohen, L. J.: 1986,The Dialogue of Reason, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Gardenfors, P.: 1978, ‘On the Logic of Relevance’,Synthese 37.
Grice, H. P.: 1975, ‘Logic and Conversation’, in D. Davidson and G Harman (eds.),The Logic of Grammar, Dickinson, Encino.
Keynes, J. M.: 1921,A Treatise on Probability, Macmillan, London.
Schlesinger, G. N.: ‘Relevance’,Theoria 52.
Sperber, D. and D. Wilson: 1986,Relevance: Communication and Cognition, Blackwell, Oxford.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cohen, L.J. Some steps towards a general theory of relevance. Synthese 101, 171–185 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01064016
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01064016