Realism,inferential semantics,and the truth norm

Characteristic of neo-pragmatism is a commitment to deflationism about semantic properties, and inferentialism about conceptual content. It is usually thought that deflationism undermines the distinction between realistic discourses and others, and that the neo-pragmatists, unlike the classical pragmatists, cannot recognize that truth is a norm of belief and inquiry. I argue, however, that (1) the distinction between realistic discourses and others can be maintained even in the face of a commitment to deflationism, and (2) that deflationists can recognize that truth is a norm of belief and inquiry. If deflationism is true, realistic discourses, it turns out, are those that are inferentially integrated with a large body of other commitments, whereas those that call for an anti-realist treatment are inferentially isolated. Now, Grimm has persuasively argued that inquiry aims at achieving understanding, and that to understand something is, roughly, to grasp a large body of inferential connections in which it features. So, if he is right, realistic discourses are those in which the aim of inquiry can be achieved. This fact, together with an inferential theory of conceptual content, will, I argue, allow neo-pragmatists to recognize truth as a norm of belief and inquiry, despite their commitment to deflationism.

     

The unity of moral attitudes: recipe semantics and credal exaptation*

Abstract

This paper offers a noncognitivist characterization of moral attitudes, according to which moral attitudes count as such because of their inclusion of moral concepts. Moral concepts are distinguished by their contribution to the functional roles of some of the attitudes in which they can occur. They have no particular functional role in other attitudes, and should instead be viewed as evolutionary spandrels. In order to make the counter-intuitive implications of the view more palatable, the paper ends with an account of the evolution of normative judgments as exaptations of the cognitive structures that underlie beliefs.     

Making sense of (in)determinate truth: the semantics of free variables

It is argued that truth value of a sentence containing free variables in a context of use (or the truth value of the proposition it expresses in a context of use), just as the reference of the free variables concerned, depends on the assumptions and posits given by the context. However, context may under-determine the reference of a free variable and the truth value of sentences in which it occurs. It is argued that in such cases a free variable has indeterminate reference and a sentence in which it occurs may have indeterminate truth value. On letting, say, x be such that \(x^2=4\), the sentence ‘Either \(x=2\) or \(x=-2\)’ is true but the sentence ‘\(x=2\)’ has an indeterminate truth value: it is determinate that the variable x refers to either 2 or \(-2\), but it is indeterminate which of the two it refers to, as a result ‘\(x=2\)’ has a truth value but its truth value is indeterminate. The semantic indeterminacy is analysed in a ‘radically’ supervaluational (or plurivaluational) semantic framework closely analogous to the treatment of vagueness in McGee and McLaughlin (South J Philos 33:203–251, 1994, Linguist Philos 27:123–136, 2004) and Smith (Vagueness and degrees of truth, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008), which saves bivalence, the T-schema and the truth-functional analysis of the boolean connectives. It is shown that on such an analysis the modality ‘determinately’ is quite clearly not an epistemic modality, avoiding a potential objection raised by Williamson (Vagueness, Routledge, London, 1994) against such ‘radically’ supervaluational treatments of vagueness, and that determinate truth (rather than truth simpliciter) is the semantic value preserved in classically valid arguments. The analysis is contrasted with the epistemicist proposal of Breckenridge and Magidor (Philos Stud 158:377–400, 2012) which implies that (in the given context) ‘\(x=2\)’ has a determinate but unknowable truth value.     

Paradox,truth and logic part I: Paradox and truth

Conclusion The discussion of the semantics of inconsistent truth theories now comes to a pause. The preceding is of course but a sketch; many interesting questions remain to be answered. The second part of this essay, however, will not seek to answer them. Rather, I will turn to the discussion of the proof theory of truth theory: the local and global logic of truth.Under the first heading, I show how to replace the inductive construction of models with an appropriate infinitary proof theory, and relate this on the one hand to the so-called dependence approach to inductive truth theories (Davis, 1979; Yablo, 1982) and on the other to van Fraassen's fact semantics for relevance logic.Under the second heading, I offer formals systems which capture the inferences valid in all approximate models. Not surprisingly, these turn out to be relevant logics.With formalism in hand, I discuss finally the extent to which the gap and/or glut approach can in fact be said to solve the paradoxes; that is, to allow us to say that the very language we are speaking is of the sort described in our theory.