Limits, Limitations, and Necessity in Margaret Macdonald

ABSTRACT I offer a contribution to recent work on Margaret Macdonald (1903–1956), a prolific though largely unknown figure in the history of analytic philosophy who applied Wittgensteinian insights to a broad range of issues. Here I examine the development of Macdonald's views with respect to idealism and conventionalism, through the application of a conceptual distinction between limits and limitations found in discussions of the same issue as it appears in the work of Wittgenstein. I show that Macdonald rejected both Platonism, idealism, and conventionalism in her doctoral thesis, and that she subsequently viewed these positions as specimens of nonsense issued under the misapprehension that necessary truths admit of justification.