Truth, explanation, minimalism

Synthese 195 (3):987–1009 (2018)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Minimalists about truth contend that traditional inflationary theories systematically fail to explain certain facts about truth, and that this failure licenses a ‘reversal of explanatory direction’. Once reversed, they purport that their own minimal theory adequately explains all of the facts involving truth. But minimalists’ main objection to inflationism seems to misfire, and the subsequent reversal of explanatory direction, if it can be made sense of, leaves minimalism in no better explanatory position; and even if the objection were serviceable and the reversal legitimate, minimalists’ adequacy thesis is still implausible.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

Minimalism and the Value of Truth.Michael P. Lynch - 2004 - Philosophical Quarterly 54 (217):497 - 517.
Minimalism and the value of truth.By Michael P. Lynch - 2004 - Philosophical Quarterly 54 (217):497–517.
On Horwich's way out.Panu Raatikainen - 2005 - Analysis 65 (3):175-177.
Minimalism and the Facts About Truth.Marian David - 2001 - In Richard Schantz (ed.), What is Truth? Walter de Gruyter.
The Weight of Truth: Lessons for Minimalists from Russell's Gray's Elegy Argument.Tim Button - 2014 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 114 (3pt3):261-289.

Analytics

Added to PP
2016-07-10

Downloads
1,013 (#20,398)

6 months
141 (#33,911)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Cory Wright
California State University, Long Beach

Citations of this work

Invariance as a basis for necessity and laws.Gila Sher - 2021 - Philosophical Studies 178 (12):3945-3974.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Truth.Paul Horwich - 1990 - Oxford, GB: Clarendon Press. Edited by Frank Jackson & Michael Smith.
The semantic conception of truth and the foundations of semantics.Alfred Tarski - 1943 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 4 (3):341-376.
Conceptions of truth.Wolfgang Künne - 2003 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The thought: A logical inquiry.Gottlob Frege - 1956 - Mind 65 (259):289-311.
Truth.Paul Horwich - 2005 - In Frank Jackson & Michael Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press UK. pp. 261-272.

View all 33 references / Add more references