Truth, Miscellaneous

In assessing the veridicality of utterances, we normally seem to assess the satisfaction of conditions that the speaker had been concerned to get right in making the utterance. However, the debate about assessor-relativism about epistemic modals, predicates of taste, gradable adjectives and conditionals has been largely driven by cases in which seemingly felicitous assessments of utterances are insensitive to aspects of the context of utterance that were highly relevant to the speaker’s choice of words. In this paper, we offer an (...) explanation of why certain locutions invite insensitive assessments, focusing primarily on ’tasty’ and ’might’. We spell out some reasons why felicitous insensitive assessments are puzzling and argue briefly that recent attempts to accommodate such assessments (including attempts by John MacFarlane, Kai von Fintel and Anthony Gillies) all fail to provide more than hints at a solution to the puzzle. In the main part of the paper, we develop an account of felicitous insensitive assessments by identifying a number of pragmatic factors that influence the felicity of assessments. Before closing, we argue that the role of these factors extend beyond cases considered in the debate about assessor-relativism and fit comfortably with standard contextualist analyses of the relevant locutions. (shrink)

This collection, with essays by Graham H. Bird, Jaakko Hintikka, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Jan Wolenski, will interest graduate students of the philosophy of language ...

Tyler Burge has argued that one has an a priori prima facie entitlement to believe in the truth of what one takes to have been presented as true by an interlocutor. This thesis, however, is problematic, since the alleged a priori prima facie entitlement to believe in the truth of our seeming understanding of things presented as true to us, rests on the possibility of determining assertoric force on a purely intellectual basis. This thesis is not plausible and Burge's analogy (...) from memory does not support it. Two routes for defending Burge's thesis of the a priori prima facie entitlement to believe in the truth of what has been asserted can be identified: the Transcendental Route and the Intrinsic Rationality Route. David Lewis' account of linguistic convention would serve as a transcendental argument for the a priori prima facie entitlement to believe in the truth of what has been asserted, but flaws in Lewis' theory leave us deprived of any good transcendental argument for such an entitlement. The Intrinsic Rationality Route is in better standing, but we have yet to see an argument for why we should resort to that measure. (shrink)

The ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates (477-399 BCE), liked to pose questions in abstract terms. What is Justice? What is Beauty? What is Goodness? And so on. Not surprisingly, many who tried to answer tied themselves up in knots. And so it is also with the highly general question: What is truth?

Contextualists and assessment relativists neglect the expressive dimension of assertoric discourse that seems to give rise to faultless disagreement. Discourse that generates the intuition makes public an attitudinal conflict, and the affective -expressive dimension of the contributing utterances accounts for it. The FD-phenomenon is an effect of a public dispute generated by a sequence of expressing opposite attitudes towards a salient object or state of affairs, where the protagonists are making an attempt to persuade the other side into joining the (...) other’s camp. (shrink)

In Truth by Analysis (2012), Colin McGinn aims to breathe new life into conceptual analysis. Sadly, he fails to defend conceptual analysis, either in principle or by example.

This paper provides finitary jointly necessary and sufficient acceptance and rejection conditions for the logical constants of a first order quantificational language. By introducing the notion of making an assignment as a distinct object level practice—something you do with a sentence—(as opposed to a meta-level semantic notion) and combining this with the practice of (hypothetical and categorical) acceptance and rejection and the practice of making suppositions one gains a structure that is sufficiently rich to fully characterize the class of classical (...) first order theories. The analysis thus provides a way of characterizing classical first order quantification by expressivist means. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In its strongest unqualified form, the principle of wholistic reference is that in any given discourse, each proposition refers to the whole universe of that discourse, regardless of how limited the referents of its non-logical or content terms. According to this principle every proposition of number theory, even an equation such as "5 + 7 = 12", refers not only to the individual numbers that it happens to mention but to the whole universe of numbers. This principle, its history, (...) and its relevance to some of Oswaldo Chateaubriand's work are discussed in my 2004 paper "The Principle of Wholistic Reference" in Essays on Chateaubriand's "Logical Forms". In Chateaubriand's réplica (reply), which is printed with my paper, he raised several important additional issues including the three I focus on in this tréplica (reply to his reply): truth-values, universes of discourse, and formal ontology. This paper is self-contained: it is not necessary to have read the above-mentioned works. The principle of wholistic reference (PWR) was first put forth by George Boole in 1847 when he espoused a monistic fixed-universe viewpoint similar to the one Frege and Russell espoused throughout their careers. Later, Boole elaborated PWR in 1854 from the pluralistic multiple-universes perspective. (shrink)

Donald Davidson presents a new edition of the 1984 volume which set out his enormously influential philosophy of language. Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation has been a central point of reference and a focus of controversy in the subject ever since, and its influence has extended into linguistic theory, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. The central question which these essays address is what it is for words to mean what they do. This new edition features an additional essay, previously uncollected. (...) 'a classic in its field.' P. F. Strawson. (shrink)

Four types of truth can be distinguished in scientific knowledge: local truths, truths by definition, mathematical truths and empirical truths. These types are strongly interrelated: empirical theories use the four types; mathematical theories are concerned only with the first three clases, whereas logical theories contain just logical truths and definitions. Those relationships allow to classify the types of truth from two viewpoints concerning, respectively, their degree of abstraction and their relative power. The multiplicity of truth modes means that the idea (...) of truth as unique and complete description of the world can be considered inadequate. (shrink)

In this paper I explain the principle of tolerance in a double aspect, reference to truth and to the individual. Tolerance is diferent from another similar concepts and we analyze some socials paradoxes that the tolerance brings. In the base of tolerance is respect to the truth and to the individual. For that reason, the studyof the concept of respect as the fundament of tolerance is the sustain in which the real solidarity an peace are establish.

This paper suggests that one of the reasons for the lack of understanding of what is happening in the Gaza Strip is our current understanding of truth. This understanding of truth, which has prevailed for 2500 years, holds that truth is the accordance of a statement with facts. Together with our recording some of the abuses of human rights in the Gaza Strip, which have all but been ignored, the paper suggests that Martin Heidegger’s understanding of truth as “aletheia,” as (...) unconcealment, may lead to a better knowledge of what is truly occurring in the Gaza Strip. (shrink)

Academic debates about pluralism and truth have become increasingly polarized in recent years. One side embraces extreme relativism, deeming any talk of objective truth as philosophically na{ï}ve. The opposition, frequently arguing that any sort of relativism leads to nihilism, insists on an objective notion of truth according to which there is only one true story of the world. Both sides agree that there is no middle path. In Truth in Context, Michael Lynch argues that there is a middle path, one (...) where metaphysical pluralism is consistent with a robust realism about truth. Drawing on the work of Hilary Putnam, W. V. O. Quine, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, among others, Lynch develops an original version of metaphysical pluralism, which he calls relativistic Kantianism. He argues that one can take facts and propositions as relative without implying that our ordinary concept of truth is a relative, epistemic, or "soft" concept. The truths may be relative, but our concept of truth need not be. (shrink)

This chapter examines the case of exception and the truth of the medial. It begins with a discussion of different truth values that the signs on the surface of the media have: the truth of referentiality and the truth of submedial space. The truth of referentiality is scientific truth whereas medial truth concerns the truth of exception. The chapter proceeds by explaining how the truth of sincerity is lost through repetition and suggests that the truth of the submedial, of the (...) hidden subject, of media-ontological suspicion is the truth of the case of exception. It also considers how the avant-garde transports artwork into a state of exception, how the phenomenon of exception is related to the phenomenon of medial sincerity, and how new cases of exception are produced when claims of medial truth deduced from old cases of exception are critiqued. (shrink)

Pretheoretically, truth is a correspondence between a sentence and facts. Other so-called theories of truth have typically been resorted to because such a correspondence is thought of as being inexpressible or as being incapable of yielding a definition of truth which expresses what we actually mean. It can be shown that truth is indefinable in the paradigm case of ordinary first-order languages only because they cannot express informational independence. As soon as this is corrected, as in independence-friendly first-order logic, truth (...) predicates are readily definable, Tarski notwithstanding. Hence, there is no reason to think that truth cannot also be defined for our actual working language—Tarski’s “colloquial language.”. (shrink)