Deflationism beyond arithmetic

The conservativeness argument poses a dilemma to deflationism about truth, according to which a deflationist theory of truth must be conservative but no adequate theory of truth is conservative. The debate on the conservativeness argument has so far been framed in a specific formal setting, where theories of truth are formulated over arithmetical base theories. I will argue that the appropriate formal setting for evaluating the conservativeness argument is provided not by theories of truth over arithmetic but by those over subject matters ‘richer’ than arithmetic, such as set theory. The move to this new formal setting provides deflationists with better defence and brings a broader perspective to the debate.

     

Deflationism About Logic

Journal of Philosophical Logic - Logical consequence is typically construed as a metalinguistic relation between (sets of) sentences. Deflationism is an account of logic that challenges this...     

Deflationism,Meaning and Truth-Conditions

Philosophical Studies -     

Correction to: Deflationism About Logic

Journal of Philosophical Logic - The original version of this article unfortunately contains mistakes introduced by the publisher during the production process. The mistakes and corrections are...     

The Generality of Anaphoric Deflationism

Philosophia - Anaphoric deflationism is a kind of prosententialist account of the use of “true.” It holds that “true” is an expressive operator and not a predicate. In...     

On Wright's Argument against Deflationism

I consider Crispin Wright's much discussed 'inflationary' argument against deflationism about truth. I identify a principle apparently involved in it, which I call Wright's principle, and present Wright's argument with the following dilemma. If Wright's principle is sound, the deflationist has a straightforward rejoinder to Wright's argument. If Wright's principle is unsound, the central part of Wright's argument, concerned with how 'true' commutes with the negation operator, is rendered superfluous. I conclude that Wright's argument is either a straightforward failure or completely otiose.     

Epistemic Principles and Epistemic Circularity

Can we show that our senses are reliable sources of information about the world? To show this, we need to establish that most of our perceptual judgments have been true. But we cannot determine these inductive instances without relying upon sense perception. Thus, it seems, we cannot establish the reliability of sense perception by means of an argument without falling into epistemic circularity. In this paper, I argue that this consequence is not an epistemological disaster. For this purpose, I defend a normative claim that it is reasonable to accept the general reliability of our perceptual judgments, instead of a factual claim that our perceptual judgments are generally reliable. More specifically, I offer a normative practical argument which explains why it is reasonable to accept the general reliability of our perceptual judgments, even though we cannot establish the general reliability of our perceptual judgments by means of theoretical reasoning.     

Epistemic Intuitions and Epistemic Contextualism

In this paper I examine the way appeals to pretheoretic intuition are used to support epistemological theses in general and the thesis of epistemic contextualism in particular. After outlining the sceptical puzzle and the contextualist's resolution of that puzzle, I explore the question of whether this solution fits better with our intuitive take on the puzzle than its invariantist rivals. I distinguish two kinds of fit a theory might have with pretheoretic intuitions–accommodation and explanation, and consider whether achieving either kind of fit would be a virtue for a theory. I then examine how contextualism could best claim to accommodate and explain our intuitions, building the best case that 1 can for contextualism, but concluding that there is no reason to accept contextualism either in the way it accommodates nor the way it explains our intuitions about the sceptical puzzle.     

Deflationism and the Normativity of Truth

This paper argues, in response to Huw Price, that deflationism has theresources to account for the normativity of truth. The discussioncenters on a principle of hyper-objective assertibility, that one isincorrect to assert that p if not-p. If this principle doesnt statea fact about truth, it neednt be explained by deflationists. If itdoes, it can be explained.     

紧缩论,证明与保守性

紧缩论者主张真谓词表达了一种逻辑概念,它的全部意义都体现在所有塔斯基式的T-语句中。Shapiro近来论证说,将紧缩论的公理添加到一阶皮亚诺算术公理系统(PA)中,在该扩张理论中能够证明PA的可靠性,并在此基础上证明PA的一致性,这表明紧缩论不具有保守性,因此真谓词不是紧缩的。本文论证,扩张理论预设了反射原则,这导致它推出了更多的东西,而反射原则是可证性谓词定义的推论,这才是造成扩张理论非保守性的真正根源。针对紧缩论的非保守性论证因此失效了。