My own truth ---Pathologies of Self-Reference and Relative Truth
In Rahman Shahid, Primiero Giuseppe & Marion Mathieu (eds.), Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, Vol. 23. springer (2011)
| Abstract | emantic pathologies of self-reference include the Liar (‘this sentence is false’), the Truth-Teller (‘this sentence is true’) and the Open Pair (‘the neighbouring sentence is false’ ‘the neighbouring sentence is false’). Although they seem like perfectly meaningful declarative sentences, truth value assignment to their uses seems either inconsistent (the Liar) or arbitrary (the Truth-Teller and the Open-Pair). These pathologies thus call for a resolution. I propose such a resolution in terms of relative-truth: the truth value of a pathological sentence use varies with the context of its assessment. It always has a determinate truth value, but this truth value is relative to the context of its assessment. I start by considering a fairly esoteric pathology: the Truth-Teller, that is, sentences which assert nothing but their own truth. I make the case that truth value of a given truth-teller use must in general depend on the context of its assessment, and that one can indeed change its truth value at will. I then show how the notion of assessment-sensitive truth can help us provide solutions to other semantic paradoxes such as the Liar and the Open Pair and that those solutions are immune to revenge problems. I conclude by situating my proposal among the main approaches to the semantic paradoxes, and by drawing a very broad moral about pathological self-reference and intentionality. | |||||||||
| Keywords | truth-teller liar paradox relativism intentionality cassatio truth | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,709 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesPatrick Greenough (2011). Truthmaker Gaps and the No-No Paradox. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82 (3):547-563.
Jan Woleński (1993). Samozwrotność i odrzucanie. Filozofia Nauki 1.
Matt Leonard (2012). Burge's Contextual Theory of Truth and the Super-Liar Paradox. In Michal Pelis Vit Puncochar (ed.), The Logica Yearbook 2011. College Publications.
Christopher Gauker (2006). Against Stepping Back: A Critique of Contextualist Approaches to the Semantic Paradoxes. Journal of Philosophical Logic 35 (4):393 - 422.
John MacFarlane (2005). Making Sense of Relative Truth. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 105 (3):321–339.
J. C. Beall (ed.) (2007). Revenge of the Liar: New Essays on the Paradox. Oxford University Press.
Dale Jacquette (2007). Denying The Liar. Polish Journal of Philosophy 1 (2):91-98.
Kevin Scharp (2007). Alethic Vengeance. In J. C. Beall (ed.), Revenge of the Liar: New Essays on the Paradox. Oxford University Press.
Noriaki Iwasa (2011). That Truth Exists is More Logical. Think 10 (27):109-112.
Kevin Scharp (forthcoming). Truth, the Liar, and Relativism. Philosophical Review.
Elia Zardini (2008). Truth and What is Said. Philosophical Perspectives 22 (1):545-574.
Bradley H. Dowden (1984). Accepting Inconsistencies From the Paradoxes. Journal of Philosophical Logic 13 (2):125-30.
Peter Eldridge-Smith (2007). Paradoxes and Hypodoxes of Time Travel. In Jan Lloyd Jones, Paul Campbell & Peter Wylie (eds.), Art and Time. Australian Scholarly Publishing.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2011-10-11Total downloads28 ( #44,160 of 549,715 )Recent downloads (6 months)2 ( #37,450 of 549,715 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
