What if all truth is context-dependent?
| Abstract | This paper argues that truth is by nature context-dependent – that no truth can be applied regardless of context. I call this “strong contextualism”. Some objections to this are considered and rejected, principally: that there are universal truths given to us by physics, logic and mathematics; and that claiming “no truths are universal” is self-defeating. Two “models” of truth are suggested to indicate that strong contextualism is coherent. It is suggested that some of the utility of the “universal framework” can be recovered via a more limited “third person viewpoint”. Keywords: philosophy, universality, context, truth, knowledge. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,701 |
| External links |
|
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Eros Corazza (2007). Contextualism, Minimalism, and Situationalism. Pragmatics & Cognition 15 (1):115-137.
Wayne A. Davis (2004). Are Knowledge Claims Indexical? Erkenntnis 61 (2-3):257 - 281.
Claudia Bianchi (2005). How to Be a Contextualist. Facta Philosophica 7 (2):261-272.
Michael Glanzberg (2004). A Contextual-Hierarchical Approach to Truth and the Liar Paradox. Journal of Philosophical Logic 33 (1):27-88.
Christopher Gauker (2006). Against Stepping Back: A Critique of Contextualist Approaches to the Semantic Paradoxes. Journal of Philosophical Logic 35 (4):393 - 422.
Benedikt Löwe & Thomas Müller (2008). Mathematical Knowledge is Context Dependent. Grazer Philosophische Studien 76 (1):91-107.
Martin Montminy (2007). Epistemic Contextualism and the Semantics-Pragmatics Distinction. Synthese 155 (1):99 - 125.
L. A. Zadeh (1975). Fuzzy Logic and Approximate Reasoning. Synthese 30 (3-4):407-428.
Kai von Fintel & Anthony S. Gillies (2008). Cia Leaks. Philosophical Review 117 (1):77-98.
Timothy Williamson (2005). Knowledge, Context, and the Agent's Point of View. In Gerhard Preyer & Georg Peter (eds.), Contextualism in Philosophy: Knowledge, Meaning, and Truth. Oxford University Press.
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2011-02-20Total downloads33 ( #36,590 of 549,094 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,361 of 549,094 )How can I increase my downloads? |

