Alice Ambrose on Logic, A Priori Concepts, and the Epistemology of Convention

TL;DR

This paper highlights Alice Ambrose's early contributions to logic and epistemology, showing her ahead of Quine in critiquing conventions, the analytic-synthetic distinction, and the foundations of logical principles.

Contribution

It demonstrates Ambrose's pioneering insights into logic and convention, predating and influencing later major philosophical debates.

Findings

Ambrose identified the paradox of treating logical principles as conventions.

She recognized the infinite regress in stipulative definitions.

She noted the instability of the analytic-synthetic divide.

Abstract

This essay argues that Alice Ambrose precedes key elements later critiques by Quine, first of Truth by convention (Quine 1936) and later of the analytic-synthetic distinction (Quine 1951). I demonstrate how Ambrose identifies in writing as early as in 1931: (1) the paradox of treating logical principles as mere conventions, (2) the infinite regress in stipulative definitions, (3) the preconditional role of logic for any convention, and (4) the instability of the analytic/synthetic divide. Ambrose, therefore, prefigures Margaret Macdonald (1934) unpublished dissertation (Cf. Spinney 2025) and predates some major contributions to the philosophy of logic by Quine a few years before he made them popular.