Comparing More Revision and Fixed-Point Theories of Truth

Journal of Philosophical Logic - Kremer presented three approaches of comparing fixed-point and revision theories of truth in Kremer (Journal of Philosophical Logic, 38(4), 363–403, 2009)....     

Fixed-Point Posets in Theories of Truth

Journal of Philosophical Logic - We show that any coherent complete partial order (ccpo) is obtainable as the fixed-point poset of the strong Kleene jump of a suitably chosen first-order ground...     

Truth and Assertability

Deflationists say that the equivalence between ‘p is true’ and p is all there is to the meaning of ‘true’. “Use” theories generally construe meaning as acceptance conditions. I argue: (i) there are certain obvious objections to a deflationary theory of truth so formulated; but (ii) they can be overcome if we employ a graded notion of use, i.e. a notion of assertability; but (iii) there appear to be certain further difficulties which cannot be overcome in this way.     

Truth table tasks: The relevance of irrelevant

Two types of truth table tasks are used investigating mental representations of conditionals: a possibilities-based and a truth-based one. In possibilities tasks, participants indicate whether a situation is possible or impossible according to the conditional rule. In truth tasks participants evaluate whether a situation makes the rule true or false, or is irrelevant with respect to the truth of the rule. Comparing the two-option version of the possibilities task with the truth task in Experiment 1, the possibilities task yields logical answer patterns whereas the truth task yields defective patterns. Adding the irrelevant option to the possibilities task in Experiment 2 leads to a considerable amount of defective patterns in the possibilities task, but still to more logical patterns in the possibilities task than in the truth task. Experiment 3 shows that directionality matters since rule-to-situation tasks yield more logical answer patterns than do situation-to-rule tasks. We conclude that both task types are not comparable as such since wording, number of options and directionality influence the results.     

詹姆士真理观中的休谟因素

与常识的和传统的符合论真理观相比,由詹姆士第一次明确阐述的实用主义真理观有着诸多不同的特点,以及体现在这些特点中的不同的哲学内涵。这些特点和内涵都是怎样产生的呢?在认识论发展的历史进程中有无其根源?该文拟通过联系休谟的经验主义,尤其是他的因果理论,来追溯实用主义真理观的认识论根源。     

Filtering Theories of Truth: Compositionality as a Criterion

The traditional way to filter out the implausible candidate solutions to the semantic paradoxes is to appeal to the so-called “cost/benefit analyses.” Yet it is often tedious and controversial to carry out such analyses in detail. Facing this, it would be helpful for us to rely upon some principles to filter out at least something, if not everything, from them. The proposal in this paper is thereby rather simple: We may use principles of compositionality as a “filter” for this purpose. The paper has four sections. In Section 2, the author uses the filter to examine Kripke’s fixed-point theory and to thereby show how it works. In Section 3, the author gives more examples from the classical theories of truth to demonstrate the power of the filter. In Section 4, the author addresses the skepticism concerning whether there is any consistent or non-trivial theory of truth that can survive this filtering procedure. A “nearly sufficient” condition for a theory of truth to survive this test is discussed in order to show that at least some consistent or non-trivial theories of truth do indeed survive the filtering procedure.     

Truth table tasks: Irrelevance and cognitive ability

Two types of truth table task are used to examine people's mental representation of conditionals. In two within-participants experiments, participants either receive the same task-type twice (Experiment 1) or are presented successively with both a possibilities task and a truth task (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 examines how people interpret the three-option possibilities task and whether they have a clear understanding of it. The present study aims to examine, for both task-types, how participants' cognitive ability relates to the classification of the truth table cases as irrelevant, and their consistency in doing so. Looking at the answer patterns, participants' cognitive ability influences their classification of the truth table cases: A positive correlation exists between cognitive ability and the number of false-antecedent cases classified as “irrelevant”, both in the possibilities task and the truth task. This favours a suppositional representation of conditionals.     

Set-Theoretic Absoluteness and the Revision Theory of Truth

We describe the solution of the Limit Rule Problem of Revision Theory and discuss the philosophical consequences of the fact that the truth set of Revision Theory is a complete 1/2 set.     

Truth in Applicative Theories

We give a survey on truth theories for applicative theories. It comprises Frege structures, universes for Frege structures, and a theory of supervaluation. We present the proof-theoretic results for these theories and show their syntactical expressive power. In particular, we present as a novelty a syntactical interpretation of ID₁ in a applicative truth theory based on supervaluation.     

Weak and Strong Theories of Truth

A subtheory of the theory of self-referential truth known as FS is shown to be weak as a theory of truth but equivalent to full FS in its proof-theoretic strength.     

Conservative Theories of Classical Truth

Some axiomatic theories of truth and related subsystems of second-order arithmetic are surveyed and shown to be conservative over their respective base theory. In particular, it is shown by purely finitistically means that the theory PA ÷ "there is a satisfaction class" and the theory FS of [2] are conservative over PA.     

Conditionals in Theories of Truth

We argue that distinct conditionals—conditionals that are governed by different logics—are needed to formalize the rules of Truth Introduction and Truth Elimination. We show that revision theory, when enriched with the new conditionals, yields an attractive theory of truth. We go on to compare this theory with one recently proposed by Hartry Field.     

The False Modesty of the Identity Theory of Truth

The identity theory of truth, according to which true thoughts are identical with facts, is very hard to formulate. It oscillates between substantive versions, which are implausible, and a merely truistic version, which is difficult to distinguish from deflationism about truth. This tension is present in the form of identity theory that one can attribute to McDowell from his views on perception, and in the conception defended by Hornsby under that name     

Truth table task: Working memory load,latencies, and perceived relevance

The aim of the present study is to uncover the relation between cognitive ability and the answer patterns yielded by the truth table task. According to the Classical Mental Models Theory, people with high working memory capacity answer according to two-valued or “logical” answer patterns. The Suppositional Theory and the Revised Mental Models Theory predict that the answer patterns given by the most intelligent ones are three-valued or “defective”. Correlations are examined, and in three experiments it is tested with a dual task paradigm whether a differential working memory load alters participants' answer patterns. A positive correlation is observed between cognitive ability and three-valued answer patterns, but no effect of the working memory load manipulation is revealed. With an inspection of the classification times we shed light on the processes underlying truth table judgements. We conclude that the Revised Mental Models Theory provides the best account for our results.     

诚信与当代社会文明

诚信是社会三大明发展的共同要求。诚信化对于物质明的意义,一是对信用制度的支持,二是其渗透于经济活动中的诚信理念。社会主义民主政治的本质要求讲“诚”,以诚立信,以信见诚。政治诚信成为当代政治明一块不可缺少的化基石。诚信明是精神明建设的一部分,诚信自身建设如何,关系到精神明的建设。     

Identity Theories of Truth and the Tractatus

The paper is concerned with the idea that the world is the totality of facts, not of things – with what is involved in thinking of the world in that way, and why one might do so. It approaches this issue through a comparison between Wittgenstein's Tractatus and the identity theory of truth proposed by Hornsby and McDowell. The paper's positive conclusion is that there is a genuine affinity between these two. A negative contention is that the modern identity theory is vulnerable to a complaint of idealism that the Tractatus can deflect.     

Probability for the Revision Theory of Truth

Journal of Philosophical Logic - We investigate how to assign probabilities to sentences that contain a type-free truth predicate. These probability values track how often a sentence is satisfied...