Antirealism and universal knowability

Truth’s universal knowability entails its discovery. This threatens antirealism, which is thought to require it. Fortunately, antirealism is not committed to it. Avoiding it requires adoption (and extension) of Dag Prawitz’s position in his long-term disagreement with Michael Dummett on the notion of provability involved in intuitionism’s identification of it with truth. Antirealism (intuitionism generalized) must accommodate a notion of lost-opportunity truth (a kind of recognition-transcendent truth), and even truth consisting in the presence of unperformable verifications. Dummett’s position cannot abide this, while Prawitz’s can. Antirealism’s epistemic notion of truth derives from general features of its meaning theory, not from a universal knowability principle.     

Deflationary Truth and Pathologies

By a classical result of Kotlarski, Krajewski and Lachlan, pathological satisfaction classes can be constructed for countable, recursively saturated models of Peano arithmetic. In this paper we consider the question of whether the pathology can be eliminated; we ask in effect what generalities involving the notion of truth can be obtained in a deflationary truth theory (a theory of truth which is conservative over its base). It is shown that the answer depends on the notion of pathology we adopt. It turns out in particular that a certain natural closure condition imposed on a satisfaction class—namely, closure of truth under sentential proofs—generates a nonconservative extension of a syntactic base theory (Peano arithmetic).     

Predication and cognitive context: Between minimalism and contextualism

In this paper, we suggest a strategy for modelling cognitive context within a truth‐conditional semantics, using Asher's model of predication. This allows us to introduce the notion of type presupposition intended as a lexical constraint to the composition of the truth‐conditional content. More specifically, we suggest that this model of predication produces a notion of truth‐conditional meaning where the cognitive context fixes a set of lexical restrictions and forced modifications. We conclude that this model might offer an intermediate position between Minimalism and Contextualism: an account that provides intuitive truth conditions within a formal semantic theory.     

Simplicity as a criterion of theory choice in metaphysics

Metaphysicians frequently appeal to the idea that theoretical simplicity is truth conducive in metaphysics, in the sense that, all other things being equal, simpler metaphysical theories are more likely to be true. In this paper I defend the notion that theoretical simplicity is truth conducive in metaphysics, against several recent objections. I do not give any direct arguments for the thesis that simplicity is truth conducive in metaphysics, since I am aware of no such arguments. I do argue, however, that there is no special problem with the notion that simplicity is truth conducive in metaphysics. More specifically, I argue that if you accept the idea that simplicity is truth conducive in science, then it would be objectionably arbitrary to reject the idea that simplicity is truth conducive in metaphysics.     

Two French Variations on Truth: Ricoeur's Attestation and Foucault's “Parrhesiastic” Attitude

Both Ricoeur and Foucault, apparently independently of each other, dedicated much effort to provide an account of truth that goes far beyond the truth of sentences, propositions, or judgments. While well aware of the speech act theory and pragmatics, they want to go beyond a formalism of rules of speech or arguments and integrate the attitude of the one who speaks in the very notion of truth. They see truth not merely as a property of statements, but as an existential process in such a way that the truth of statements is linked to the historically situated speaker. Truth as a property of statements is related to truth as an event. However, both reject any form of historicism or relativism.

I examine Ricoeur's notion of attestation and Foucault's notion of parrhesia, showing how both notions represent a kind of “poetics of truth”, which combines the existential position of the speaker and the historical circumstances of utterance. I show the extent to which both poetics of truth are political and ethical and how successful each poetics is: Ricoeur believes that he can maintain a claim to universality whereas Foucault abandons such a claim and instead subscribes to a radical singularity of the event of speech in a mode of truth that is, as he says, “polemic”.     

Truth or Meaning? A Question of Priority

There is an incompatibility between the deflationist approach to truth, which makes truth transparent on the basis of an antecedent grasp of meaning, and the traditional endeavour, exemplified by Davidson, to explicate meaning through of truth. I suggest that both parties are in the explanatory red: deflationist lack a non‐truth‐involving theory of meaning and Davidsonians lack a non‐deflationary account of truth. My focus is on the attempts of the latter party to resolve their problem. I look in detail at Davidson's more recent work and suggest that it seeks to articulate a primitive notion of truth that may balance between a notion that collapses into deflationism and one that is wholly subsumed under a general theory of interpretation. I conclude that this tightrope walk is ultimately unsuccessful. Equally, however, some reasons are provided for thinking that deflationism might be equally unsuccessful with its problem. ‘Truth or meaning?’remains an open question.     

Screening selves: sciences of memory and identity on film, 1930-1960

Chemicals that could be used scientifically to force an individual to tell the truth - dubbed truth sera - were first described in the early 1920s. Ever since, the notion of "truth drugs" has remained tenaciously within popular culture. One of the most important reasons for the survival of the notion of a pharmaceutical technology of authenticity was the role of the barbiturates sodium amytal and sodium pentothal in psychiatric research and treatment during the 1930s through the 1950s. This article traces that history, giving special emphasis to the role of motion pictures. The article argues that researchers were seeking to develop a technology of authenticity (rather than of the truth per se). It examines how they used motion pictures to help them develop and disseminate this technology.     

Between proof and truth

We consider two versions of truth as grounded in verification procedures: Dummett??s notion of proof as an effective way to establish the truth of a statement and Hintikka??s GTS notion of truth as given by the existence of a winning strategy for the game associated with a statement. Hintikka has argued that the two notions should be effective and that one should thus restrict one??s attention to recursive winning strategies. In the context of arithmetic, we show that the two notions do not coincide: on the one hand, proofs in PA do not yield recursive winning strategies for the associated game; on the other hand, there is no sound and effective proof procedure that captures recursive GTS truths. We then consider a generalized version of Game Theoretical Semantics by introducing games with backward moves. In this setting, a connection is made between proofs and recursive winning strategies. We then apply this distinction between two kinds of verificationist procedures to a recent debate about how we recognize the truth of G?delian sentences.     

Further Remarks on Truth and Contradiction

We address an issue recently discussed by Graham Priest: whether the very nature of truth (understood as in correspondence theories) rules out true contradictions, and hence whether a correspondence-theoretic notion of truth rules against dialetheism. We argue that, notwithstanding appearances to the contrary, objections from within the correspondence theory do not stand in the way of dialetheism. We close by highlighting, but not attempting to resolve, two further challenges for dialetheism which arise out of familiar philosophical theorizing about truth.     

Analyticity and Justification in Frege

That there are analytic truths may challenge a principle of the homogeneity of truth. Unlike standard conceptions, in which analyticity is couched in terms of “truth in virtue of meanings”, Frege’s notions of analytic and a priori concern justification, respecting a principle of the homogeneity of truth. Where there is no justification these notions do not apply, Frege insists. Basic truths and axioms may be analytic (or a priori), though unprovable, which means there is a form of justification which is not (deductive) proof. This is also required for regarding singular factual propositions as a posteriori. A Fregean direction for explicating this wider notion of justification is suggested in terms of his notion of sense (Sinn)—modes in which what the axioms are about are given—and its general epistemological significance is sketched.     

Keeping ‘True’: A Case Study in Conceptual Ethics

Suppose our ordinary notion of truth is ‘inconsistent’ in the sense that its meaning is partly given by principles that classically entail a logical contradiction. Should we replace the notion with a consistent surrogate? This paper begins by defusing various arguments in favor of this revisionary proposal, including Kevin Scharp’s contention that we need to replace truth for the purposes of semantic theorizing (and thus, in particular, to formulate the inconsistency theory of truth itself). Borrowing a certain conservative metasemantic principle from Matti Eklund, the article goes on to build a positive case for the opposite policy: retaining truth as-is. The thought is basically that bivalence for the bulk of what we say in the course of ordinary, scientific, and philosophical inquiry should suffice to justify keeping ‘true’. Two versions of the story are told: one more philosophical, drawing on an analogy to Lewis’ response to Putnam’s paradox; the other more technical, invoking a deviant strand of mathematical work on the semantic paradoxes.     

Semantics and truth relative to a world

This paper argues that relativity of truth to a world plays no significant role in empirical semantic theory, even as it is done in the model-theoretic tradition relying on intensional type theory. Some philosophical views of content provide an important notion of truth at a world, but they do not constrain the empirical domain of semantic theory in a way that makes this notion empirically significant. As an application of this conclusion, this paper shows that a potential motivation for relativism based on the relativity of truth to a world fails.     

Kant on Truth-Aptness

Many scholars claimed that, according to Immanuel Kant, some judgements lack a truth-value: analytic judgements, judgements about items of which humans cannot have experience, judgements of perception, and non-assertoric judgements. However, no one has undertaken an extensive examination of the textual evidence for those claims.

Based on an analysis of Kant's texts, I argue that: ? according to Kant, only judgements of perception are not truth-apt. All other judgements are truth-apt, including analytic judgements and judgements about items of which humans cannot have experience.

? Kant sometimes states that truth-apt judgements are actual bearers of truth or falsity only when they are taken to state what is actually the case. Kant calls these judgements assertoric. Other texts ascribe truth and falsity to judgements, regardless of whether they are assertoric.

Kant's views on truth-aptness raise challenges for correspondentist and coherentist interpretations of Kant's theory of truth; they rule out the identification of Kant's crucial notion of objective validity with truth-aptness; and they imply that Kant was not a verificationist about truth or meaning.     

Axiomatizing the Logic of Imagination

In a recent paper Berto introduces a semantic system for a logic of imagination, intended as positive conceivability, and aboutness of imaginative acts. This system crucially adopts elements of both the semantics of conditionals and the semantics of analytical implications in order to account for the central logical traits of the notion of truth in an act of imagination based on an explicit input. The main problem left unsolved is to put forward a complete set of axioms for the proposed system. In the present paper I offer a solution to this problem by providing a complete axiomatization of a generalization of the original semantics. The difficulty in proving completeness lies in the fact that the modalities that capture the notion of truth in an act of imagination are neither standard nor minimal, so that the construction of the canonical model and the proof of the truth lemma are to be substantially modified.

     

A Note on Typed Truth and Consistency Assertions

In the paper we investigate typed (mainly compositional) axiomatizations of the truth predicate in which the axioms of truth come with a built-in, minimal and self-sufficient machinery to talk about syntactic aspects of an arbitrary base theory. Expanding previous works of the author and building on recent works of Albert Visser and Richard Heck, we give a precise characterization of these systems by investigating the strict relationships occurring between them, arithmetized model constructions in weak arithmetical systems and suitable set existence axioms. The framework considered will give rise to some methodological remarks on the construction of truth theories and provide us with a privileged point of view to analyze the notion of truth arising from compositional principles in a typed setting.     

Post‐truth politics and discursive psychology

This article argues for the potential of discursive psychology (DP) in the study of post‐truth politics. Work produced outside of psychology is considered, particularly from political science and international relations, which have made a promising start. Providing an overview of this body of research, I argue for their respective strengths and weaknesses. The literature so far tends to work with the notion that truth and emotion are matters that are, or at least should be, distinguishable. Instead, I argue that, rather than lament the blurring between truth and untruth, one should look to how these unfold as matters of practical concern in political discourse. DP is a tool particularly suited to the task; it highlights the importance of viewing ‘truth’ as a rhetorical resource. In this light, we can view post‐truth politics as a rhetorical matter rather than a degeneration of truth.