Alethic Pluralism and the Role of Reference in the Metaphysics of Truth

In this paper, I outline and defend a novel approach to alethic pluralism, the thesis that truth has more than one metaphysical nature: where truth is, in part, explained by reference, it is (relevantly) relational in character and can be regarded as consisting in correspondence; but where instead truth does not depend upon reference it is not (relevantly) relational and involves only coherence. In the process, I articulate a clear sense in which truth may or may not depend upon reference: this involves distinguishing semantic denotation from pragmatic speaker reference and claiming that there may or may not exist a metasemantic connection between these two notions. Finally, I argue that reference is not in general inscrutable—that this metasemantic connection does exist in the case of our ordinary discourse about present macroscopic concrete objects—but that it is in pure mathematics, where reference cannot be secured, and which therefore plays no role in accounting for truth. In this manner, alethic pluralism is upheld.     

Alethic Pluralism,Logical Validity,and Natural Truth

Philosophia - Alethic pluralism holds that there are many ways of being true. The view has been accused of being unable to do justice to the traditional account of logical validity, understood as...     

Alethic Functionalism and Our Folk Theory of Truth

According to alethic functionalism, truth is a higher-order multiply realizable property of propositions. After briefly presenting the views main principles and motivations, I defend alethic functionalism from recent criticisms raised against it by Cory Wright. Wright argues that alethic functionalism will collapse either into deflationism or into a view that takes true as simply ambiguous. I reject both claims.     

Alethic fictionalism,alethic nihilism,and the Liar Paradox

Recently, several philosophers have proposed fictionalist accounts of truth-talk, as a means for resolving the semantic pathology that the Liar Paradox appears to present. These alethic fictionalists aim to vindicate truth-talk as a kind of as if discourse, while rejecting that the talk attributes any real property of truth. Liggins (Analysis 74:566–574, 2014) has recently critically assessed one such proposal, Beall’s (The law of non-contradiction: new philosophical essays. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 197–216, 2004) constructive methodological deflationist (henceforth, ‘CMD’), offering objections to Beall’s proposed alethic fictionalism that potentially generalize to other alethic fictionalist accounts. Liggins further argues that CMD supports a classically consistent response to the Liar Paradox—one that can be extracted from CMD, while leaving its putatively problematic fictionalist elements behind in favor of alethic nihilism. In this paper, after establishing that Liggins’s criticisms of CMD are off base, we show that the classical resolution of the Liar Paradox that he proposes is unworkable. Since his resistance to alethic fictionalism turns out to be unmotivated, we conclude that this approach is still worth considering as a framework for a resolution of the Liar Paradox.     

Alethic desires,framing effects,and deflationism: Reply to Asay

Jamin Asay has recently argued that deflationists about the concept of truth cannot satisfactorily account for our alethic desires, i.e., those of our desires that pertain to the truth of our beliefs. In this brief reply, I show how deflationists can draw on well-established psychological findings on framing effects to explain how the concept of truth behaves within the scope of our alethic desires.     

Plural Reference

A plural referring expression ('the F s' or 'Tom, Dick and Harriet') may be used to refer either distributively, saying something which applies to each of the F s individually, or collectively, to the F s taken as a single totality. Predicate Logic has to analyse both uses in terms of singular reference, treating them quite differently in so doing; but we think of such an expression as functioning in basically the same way in both kinds of use. This understanding can be vindicated if we recognise that what a plural referring expression picks out is not either an aggregate simpliciter or a set, but a plurality – an aggregate taken relative to a principle for individuating its constituents; this admits of being seen either as many things or as one. In any given case, it is the nature of what is being said about the plurality which tells us whether the reference to it is to be taken as distributive, collective, or a combination of the two. Talk about pluralities is extensional. Augmenting Predicate Logic to accommodate the distinctive inference-pattern associated with distributive plural reference is simple – and arguably necessary, to cope with cases in which distributive and collective reference are essentially combined (e.g., attributions of concerted action).     

Reference and Truth

Journal of Philosophical Logic - I apply the notions of alethic reference introduced in previous work in the construction of several classical semantic truth theories. Furthermore, I provide...