There are often said to be five main 'theories of truth': correspondence, coherence, pragmatic, redundancy, and semantic theories. The coherence theory of truth equates the truth of a judgment with its coherence with other beliefs. Different versions of the theory give different accounts of coherence, but in all its forms the point is to exhibit truth as an internal relation between beliefs. The pragmatic theory of truth is akin to a coherence (...) theory of this Kantian kind. No coherence theorist need deny the uncontentious claim that for a judgment to be true is for it to stand in a certain relationship, which can be called correspondence, with some state of affairs in the world. The conflict with the redundancy theory may be more apparent than real. For the redundancy theory is not a theory of what truth consists in, but a theory about the meaning of the words 'is true'. (shrink)

This chapter discusses formal theories of truth: the redundancy theory and its ilk, distinguished by the attempt to characterize truth in terms of its structural properties, in the context of the position adopted by Putnam in his John Dewey Lectures, here styled ‘Common-sense Realism’. This position is described, combining two principles called the Thesis of the Internality and the Thesis of World-Embeddedness, with a formal account of truth. It is argued that Common-sense Realism, along with all (...) theories comprising a formal account of truth, should be committed to the flames, because they are cut off from exploiting the Fregean model of meaning, based on a recursion on truth. (shrink)

Arguments pro and contra convergent realism - underdetermination of theory by observational evidence and pessimistic meta-induction from past falsity- are considered. It is argued that, to meet the counter-arguments challenge, convergent realism should be considerably changed with a help of modification of the propositions from this meta-programme’s “hard core” and “protecting belt”. Maybe one of the ways out is to turn to the coherent theory of truth. Some of the works of Hegel (as interpreted by Merab Mamardashvili (...) and Alexandre Kojev), Husserl and Heidegger can help to dig still deeper into the background of this theory. Key words: Husserl, Heidegger, Hegel, convergent realism, internal realism, coherent theory of truth. -/- . (shrink)

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.

A massive series of meticulous clarifications and arguments is marshalled to attempt to refute, first, the doctrine that all relations are "internal", next, the claims that coherence is the sole criterion of the nature of truth, and finally, the theory of degrees of truth and falsity. The author's great familiarity with the literature of the coherence theorists proves almost a drawback: he prefers to cite texts extensively, but must then acknowledge important differences among them. There is (...) little in the way of a constructive alternative theory of truth, but the criticism is formidable.--W. L. M. (shrink)

The present article purports to show that the protocol sentence debate, pursued by some leading members of the Vienna Circle in the mid-1930s, was essentially a controversy over the explanation and the real significance of the concept of truth. It is further shown that the fundamental issue underlying the discussions about the concept of truth was the relationship between form and content, as well as between logic/language and the world. R. Carnap was the philosopher who most explicitly and (...) systematically attempted to come to grips with this problem. It is shown that the form-content distinction pervades the three most important phases of Carnap's philosophical development: the structuralist (in Der logische Aufbau der Welt), the syntactical and the semantical. His final semantical stance is essentially determined by the concept of linguistic frameworks. The article purports to demonstrate that this concept cannot be dispensed with in philosophy, but that Carnap failed to work out its ontological implications. Finally, the concept of an internal ontology is briefly delineated. (shrink)

In ‘On McDowell's identity conception of truth’ , we suggested that McDowell's Identity Theory, according to which a proposition is true if and only if it is identical with a fact, is only fully understood when we realize that there are two identity claims involved. The first is that, when one thinks truly, the content of a whole thought is identical with a Tractarian Tatsachen – a complex fact constituted by simple Sachverhalte – and the second is that (...) these simple Sachverhalte are in turn identical with simple Fregean senses. 1As an example, we suggested that the complex content/proposition/Fregean sense is identical with the Tractarian Tatsachen constituted by the two Sachverhalte: the object's being a tiger and the object's being undernourished, both of which can be seen, as the second identity with simple Fregean senses requires, to present an object in a certain way – as being, in turn, a tiger and undernourished.In his response to our article, Julian Dodd raises three internal criticisms concerning the coherence of the view as a whole, as well as the interpretative criticism that, regardless of the internal coherence of the view, it is not McDowell's. We think that Dodd fails to appreciate the view we have developed in our article, so much so that he believes that his own proffered view of McDowell, articulated in the final section of his response, is an alternative to our own position when in fact it is simply a restatement of that position. Because this point is so fundamental, we begin below by spelling out exactly where Dodd's understanding of our view goes wrong and so why his interpretative criticism misses its target before addressing the internal criticisms concerning the coherence of the view as a …. (shrink)

In this paper I examine five essential themes in Brand Blanshard's coherence theory of truth. Blanshard defines truth in terms of the rational or the interdependence of concepts, where concepts determine objects of experience rather than merely conform to them. On this view, truth is contextual and is the approximation of thought to reality or the systemization of the two ends - the immanent and transcendent. I raise some worries for this account of truth, foremost (...) of which is the worry that it commits us to a deep-seated skepticism, both theoretical and practical. In order to be able to tell when the immanent end is achieved and if it is making progress towards the transcendent end (i.e., when the ultimate systematization is realized), we require an omniscient standpoint of cosmic order or overarching system of beliefs. While this seems possible in principle it is not so in practice. (shrink)

The paper discusses which modal principles should hold for a truth operator answering to the truth theory of internal realism. It turns out that the logic of truth in internal realism is isomorphic to the modal system S4.

Although Sartre rejects a certain kind of idealism in "Truth and Existence", I argue that a commitment to a kind of transcendental idealism remains. I explore the expression of this idealism in "Truth and Existence" and how it enhances an idealist tradition which begins with Kant. More importantly, I examine Sartre's divergence from Kantian idealism and his blending of pragmatism with idealism, in a way most similar to Wittgenstein's. Unlike Wittgenstein's idealism, however, Sartre's idealism, I argue, brings him (...) dangerously close to solipsism and creates for his theory of truth a serious problem of cognitive splintering. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Living the Truth: A Theory of ActionBenjamin J. BrownLiving the Truth: A Theory of Action Klaus Demmer Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2010. 179 pp. $34.95.Klaus Demmer is one of the most influential Catholic moral theologians in Europe since Vatican II. Unfortunately, he is relatively unknown in America. Living the Truth is only the second of his works to be translated into English, (...) although other translations are anticipated. In Living the Truth, Demmer provides an incredibly balanced and nuanced work of fundamental moral theology and brims with insights. Not content with easy answers or oversimplifications, Demmer seeks in this book not only to chart a way between apparent opposites but also to synthesize the best of both into a new unity.For example, Demmer returns regularly to the question of the foundation and role of moral norms. Norms are indispensable in the life of the “ethical personality,” the person who is fully alive as a human being. They serve to open a person to the truth and to freedom and help to make a space for genuinely good, free, and vibrant action. However, norms are not at the heart of Demmer’s ethics, either as a discipline or in actual life. He also speaks of the ways in which a person establishes norms for herself even as he is careful to avoid relativism or subjectivism. Acknowledging that norms derived from a natural law ethics are true and important and that Christian morality may not be able to add any propositional content to natural law, he also argues at length that Christianity does in fact significantly shape a natural law ethics into something that is both deeper and more expansive. For Demmer, the Christian context changes the basis and meaning of morality. Although frustratingly spare with examples, he brings to the fore the difference between grounding human dignity in human nature as reason can grasp it and grounding it more specifically in the image and likeness of God and the love shown in the incarnation and redemption.Demmer’s moral theology is profoundly human and existential; it is immersed in the context and texture of real human experience. In many ways, it is very pastoral. It certainly manifests a depth of psychological insight into the nature and workings of the human mind, for example, in analyzing the ways in which people fall into pride and self-deception (33–37).Living the Truth’s concern with truth and truthfulness is an important and timely theme. Once again, Demmer synthesizes distinct elements. Truthfulness is a multifaceted reality, referring both to internal and external forces. Systematically [End Page 227] grounding his ethics in a robust classical metaphysic, Demmer understands the “true,” the “good,” and “being” to be related as transcendentals (42). The “truth” opens one up to “goodness,” which in turn allows for the flourishing of the human person. Far from being restrictive, the truth opens up possibilities for true freedom. But this only occurs when it is internalized as “truthfulness,” a virtue of many dimensions that Demmer unfolds throughout the book, particularly in the last of the three main parts.Living the Truth is very dense. It definitely is not an undergraduate text. Both the meaning of individual sentences and the flow of Demmer’s thought are elusive at times. Many subsections discuss a range of ideas and seem at times to wander. Even readers with a strong background in moral theology will find it necessary to reread and think carefully in order to catch the precise meaning of specific phrases and follow the argument. Nonetheless, the rewards are well worth the effort. Every moral theologian owes it to herself to read this book. [End Page 228]Benjamin J. BrownLourdes UniversityCopyright © 2012 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In Michael Ruse's recent publications, such as Taking Darwin Seriously (1998) and Evolutionary Naturalism (1995), he has advocated a certain sort of evolutionary epistemology and has argued that it implies a rejection of metaphysical realism (MR) in favor of a position that he calls “internal realism” (IR). Additionally, he has maintained that, insofar as his evolutionary epistemology implies a rejection of MR in favor of IR, it escapes the kind of argument against naturalism that Alvin Plantinga makes in his (...) Warrant and Proper Function (1993). In this article I explain the relevant views and arguments of Ruse and Plantinga, and I critically engage with Ruse's views, arguing that (1) his case for rejecting MR has no essential connection to evolutionary considerations; (2) his case for rejecting MR depends upon internalist assumptions about the nature of knowledge that are in need of some kind of defense; and (3) given his implicit internalism and his commitment to IR, his argument for rejecting MR can be used against his IR. (shrink)

Or, in Donald Davidson’s much quoted words: “What is it for words to mean what they do?” (Davidson 1984, xiii). Davidson himself suggested approaching this matter by asking two different questions: What form should a formal semantics take? And: What is it that makes a semantic theory correct for a particular language, i.e. what determines meaning? The second question concerns the place of semantic facts in a wider metaphysical space: How do these facts relate to non-semantic facts? Can they (...) be reduced to non-semantic facts, do they merely supervene on non-semantic facts, or are they something like metaphysical primitives? In the second half of the Twentieth Century, philosophers of language have been especially interested in the relation between semantic facts and facts that can be described in naturalistic terms, and different versions of reductive and non-reductive naturalism have been discussed. Another, though related, debate concerns the question whether the facts determining meaning (and thought content) are facts in some sense internal, or external, to the subject saying or thinking something. (shrink)

Abstract Jürgen Habermas has proposed a tripartite classification of analytic philosophy of language into formal semantics, intentionalistic semantics, and use?theories of meaning. Here, I focus on the relationship between formal semantics and Habermas? own account of meaning and truth. I argue against his early ?consensus theory of truth?, according to which truth is defined as idealized warranted assertibility and explained by the ?discursive redemption? of validity claims. A claim is discursively redeemed if it commands rationally motivated (...) consensus of all discursive partners. I argue that this is not so much a theory of truth as of justification. As an account of truth, it is unsatisfactory because warrants can be lost in light of new arguments, and because consensus is seen as criterial for truth only if it is in principle defeasible ? hence there remains a gap between truth and even idealized warranted assertibility. In The Theory of Communicative Action, Habermas? views undergo a shift. Following Dummett, he cashes out meaning in terms of assertibility conditions. While Habermas continues to insist on an epistemically conditioned notion of truth, he no longer explicitly defines truth as idealized warranted assertibility; nor does his meaning?theoretic framework require him to do so. I argue that truth is an irreducible and ineliminable regulative idea. In particular, it can be explicated in terms of justification only indirectly. Contrary to some commentators, I do not believe that the regulative function of truth is merely negative. Fallibilism does not exhaust the meaning of truth. For we do not make truth claims provisionally, that is, with the understanding that they may turn out to be wrong. Rather, we gamble that we will not turn out to be wrong. Therefore, the concept of truth has not only a critical, but also a positive function in our discourse. (shrink)

In this impressive second edition of Theory of Knowledge, Keith Lehrer introduces students to the major traditional and contemporary accounts of knowing. Beginning with the traditional definition of knowledge as justified true belief, Lehrer explores the truth, belief, and justification conditions on the way to a thorough examination of foundation theories of knowledge,the work of Platinga, externalism and naturalized epistemologies, internalism and modern coherence theories, contextualism, and recent reliabilist and causal theories. Lehrer gives all views careful examination and (...) concludes that external factors must be matched by appropriate internal factors to yield knowledge. This match of internal and external factors follows from Lehrer’s new coherence theory of undefeated justification. In addition to doing justice to the living epistemological traditions, the text smoothly integrates several new lines that will interest scholars. Also, a feature of special interest is Lehrer’s concept of a justification game.This second edition of Theory of Knowledge is a thoroughly revised and updated version that contains several completely new chapters. Written by a well-known scholar and contributor to modern epistemology, this text is distinguished by clarity of structure, accessible writing, and an elegant mix of traditional material, contemporary ideas, and well-motivated innovation. (shrink)

This paper is a follow-up to [4], in which a mistake in [6] (which spread also to [9]) was corrected. We give a strenghtening of the main result on the semantical nonconservativity of the theory of PT−with internal induction for total formulae${(\rm{P}}{{\rm{T}}^ - } + {\rm{INT}}\left( {{\rm{tot}}} \right)$, denoted by PT−in [9]). We show that if to PT−the axiom of internal induction forallarithmetical formulae is added (giving${\rm{P}}{{\rm{T}}^ - } + {\rm{INT}}$), then this theory is semantically stronger (...) than${\rm{P}}{{\rm{T}}^ - } + {\rm{INT}}\left( {{\rm{tot}}} \right)$. In particular the latter is not relatively truth definable (in the sense of [11]) in the former. Last but not least, we provide an axiomatic theory of truth which meets the requirements put forward by Fischer and Horsten in [9]. The truth theory we define is based on Weak Kleene Logic instead of the Strong one. (shrink)

In this chapter I articulate and defend a basic principle capturing the underlying structure of an attractive sort of national reconciliation that accounts for a wide array of disparate judgments about the subject. There are extant theories of national reconciliation in the literature, most of which are informed by Kantian, liberal-democratic and similar perspectives. In contrast to these, I spell out a theory grounded on a comparatively underexplored sub-Saharan ethic. My foremost aim is to demonstrate how African ideals about (...) communal relationship, still largely unfamiliar to an international audience, do a promising job of providing a unified foundation for the roles of truth-telling, apology, forgiveness, compensation, amnesty and related practices often associated with national reconciliation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Theories of Emotion: Expressing, Feeling, Acting by Pia CAMPEGGIANISabrina B. LittleCAMPEGGIANI, Pia. Theories of Emotion: Expressing, Feeling, Acting. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023. xiv + 199 pp. Cloth, $80.89; paper, $21.60In Theories of Emotion, Pia Campeggiani provides a philosophical introduction to the emotions. The book is multidisciplinary and empirically informed. It is organized around three “groundbreaking intuitions” of emotion theory—(1) expression, (2) subjectivity, and (3) action. Each (...) section corresponds to a different thinker—Charles Darwin, William James, and John Dewey, respectively—and each section concludes with a discussion of relevant debates. This book is outstanding. It is clearly written, well organized, and impressive in its scope. In what follows, I outline key ideas and raise questions generated by each section, then conclude with general reflections on the text.Campeggiani begins with the “scandal” of emotion research: There is no agreement about what an emotion is. In part, this lack of consensus is due to the imprecise ways we employ concepts like feelings, emotions, affect, and passions in ordinary discourse. In part, it is due to empirical difficulties. For example, Campeggiani describes how implicit assumptions and a forced-choice format compromised an experiment about expression universality.Additionally, Campeggiani points out that the category “emotions” has an internal structure that lacks clear-cut boundaries. There are paradigmatic examples of emotions, such as fear and anger, but there are also ambiguous phenomena, such as respect and modesty, which we may or may not recognize as such. Throughout the text, Campeggiani introduces and evaluates numerous accounts of emotions, drawing our attention to the strengths, limitations, and empirical adequacy of each.Part 1 begins with Charles Darwin’s contributions to emotion theory—an emphasis on the biological origins of emotions and a focus on expression. This section examines emotions in connection to adaptive fitness, exploring phenomena such as blushing when we are ashamed and the biological bases of emotions. A highlight of this section is an exploration of the social or communicative character of the emotions, which Darwin described as “only a secondary effect” of expression. Campeggiani examines emotional contagion and imitation, as well as the [End Page 141] phenomenon of feeling more pain when we express pain on our faces. There is also a rich discussion about constructionism as an alternative to basic emotions theory.Part 2 opens with William James on subjective experience. Campeggiani describes the limitations of James’s position—of understanding emotions to be reducible to feelings. For starters, this position is not empirically well supported. Campeggiani cites Walter Cannon’s observation that “many of the autonomic changes that are symptomatic of a given emotion can also occur in its absence.” Additionally, James fails to “properly flesh out the link between emotions and evaluations.” Campeggiani then describes the cognitive turn in emotion theory that emerged in response to the lack of attention paid to evaluation. Cognitive accounts of emotion deemphasize the bodily dimensions of emotional experiences in favor of the intentional properties, or “aboutness,” of emotions. Emotions see things as things.From my vantage, this was the best part of the book. Campeggiani highlights Damasio’s point that decision-making depends on having a “correct affective perception of the values at stake in a given situation.” For instance, feeling outsized or misdirected fear may undermine our decision-making. Campeggiani also introduces debates about whether emotions are appraisals, and whether emotions entail judgments or make judgments more likely. In the introduction, she mentions that “decision-making processes are always and inevitably underpinned by emotions, for good and for ill.” We see what she means in this section. Emotions participate in reason, impede reason, and have cognitive content themselves.That emotions involve or participate in our judgments raises two kinds of concerns—epistemic and normative. The epistemic worry is that inaccurate appraisals may undermine our understanding of the world. This is especially worrisome for the class of emotions Campeggiani calls “recalcitrant,” or closed off to other mental states, and for the emotions she says are “heavily influenced by our needs and goals.” Emotions are imperfectly truth-tracking, as was made clear earlier, in part 1, regarding their adaptive nature. The normative worry is that certain emotional... (shrink)

This systematic development of the internal realist approach, first developed by Hilary Putnam, tries to steer a middle course between metaphysical realism and relativism. It argues against metaphysical realism that it is open to global skepticism and cannot cope with conceptual pluralism. Against relativism it is claimed that there are mind-independent constraints on the validity of our claims to knowledge. The book provides a moderately verificationist account of semantics and novel explanation of the idea of conceptual schemes. It is (...) also argued that internalism realism can accommodate our common sense realist intuitions adn is also compatible with physicalism and naturalism. (shrink)

How do we explain the truth of true propositions? Truthmaker theory is the branch of metaphysics that explores the relationships between what is true and what exists. It plays an important role in contemporary debates about the nature of metaphysics and metaphysical enquiry. -/- In this book Jonathan Tallant argues, controversially, that we should reject truthmaker theory. In its place he argues for an 'explanationist' approach. Drawing on a deflationary theory of truth he shows that (...) it allows us to explain the truth of true propositions and respond to recent arguments that purport to show otherwise. He augments this with a distinction between internally and externally quantified claims: externally quantified claims are claims that quantify over elements of our ontology that play an indispensable explanatory role; internally quantified claims do not. He deploys this union of deflationism and a distinction between kinds of quantification to pursue metaphysical inquiry, sketching the implications for a number of first-order debates, including those in the philosophy of time, modality and mathematics, and also shows how this explanationist model can be used to solve the key problems that afflicted truthmaker theory. -/- Truth and the World is an important contribution to debates about truth and truthmaker theory as well as metametaphysics, the metaphysics of time and the metaphysics of mathematics, and is essential reading for students and scholars engaged in the study of these topics. (shrink)

In this essay, I present a new argument for the impossibility of defining truth by specifying the underlying structural property all and only true propositions have in common The set of considerations I use to support this claim take as that inspiration Alston's recent argument that it is impossible to define truth epistemically—in terms of justification or warrant According to what Alston calls the “intensional argument”, epistemic definitions are inconsistent with the T schema or the principle that it (...) is true that p if, and only if, p. Since the T-schema has great intuitive appeal, this is a powerful indictment of epistemic theories. But the basic argument that Alston employs, and the constellation of considerations which prosecute that argument, work against a much broader range of views than he considers While this implies that a traditional conceptual analysts of truth may be impossible, it opens the door to a pluralist approach to truth. (shrink)

Hubert Dreyfus once noted that it would be difficult to ascertain whether Edmund Husserl had a computational theory of mind. I provide evidence that he had one. Both Steven Pinker and Steven Horst think that the computational theory of mind must have two components: a representational-symbolic component and a causal component. Bearing this in mind, we proceed to a close-reading of the sections of “On the Logic of Signs” wherein Husserl presents, if I’m correct, his computational theory (...) of mind embedded in a language of thought. My argument goes like this: the computational theory of mind is the idea, following Haugeland, that the mind comes prepackaged as, or is endogenously constrained to be, an automatic formal system; this explains, according to Husserl, why automatic trains of thought without logical intent resemble arguments exhibiting deductive structure with logical intent. In general, an automatic formal system yields true results provided that the syntactic symbols with which they compute are univocal and are semantically evaluable, and the mechanized inferences they perform are valid and preserve truth. These two conditions describe a computational cognitive process: the first condition connects representations to syntax, and the second condition uses the syntax, in inauthentic judging, to arrive at true conclusions through blind causality. Now, in point of textual fact, these are the conditions which Husserl attributes to our “natural psychological mechanism of symbolic inference” which typically yields true results. Since a formal system attributed to the “internal structure” of the mind, and guided by blind causality, just is the computational theory of mind, it follows, I think, that Husserl had a computational theory of mind. This computational theory is, moreover, embedded in a language of thought, since Husserl attributes a language-like form to our thoughts so that they may be mechanically processed. I conclude with a discussion of my results. (shrink)

Our computational metaphysics group describes its use of automated reasoning tools to study Leibniz’s theory of concepts. We start with a reconstruction of Leibniz’s theory within the theory of abstract objects (henceforth ‘object theory’). Leibniz’s theory of concepts, under this reconstruction, has a non-modal algebra of concepts, a concept-containment theory of truth, and a modal metaphysics of complete individual concepts. We show how the object-theoretic reconstruction of these components of Leibniz’s theory can (...) be represented for investigation by means of automated theorem provers and finite model builders. The fundamental theorem of Leibniz’s theory is derived using these tools. (shrink)

The thesis deals with the concept of truth and the paradoxes of truth. Philosophical theories usually consider the concept of truth from a wider perspective. They are concerned with questions such as - Is there any connection between the truth and the world? And, if there is - What is the nature of the connection? Contrary to these theories, this analysis is of a logical nature. It deals with the internal semantic structure of language, the (...) mutual semantic connection of sentences, above all the connection of sentences that speak about the truth of other sentences and sentences whose truth they speak about. Truth paradoxes show that there is a problem in our basic understanding of the language meaning and they are a test for any proposed solution. It is important to make a distinction between the normative and analytical aspect of the solution. The former tries to ensure that paradoxes will not emerge. The latter tries to explain paradoxes. Of course, the practical aspect of the solution is also important. It tries to ensure a good framework for logical foundations of knowledge, for related problems in Artificial Intelligence and for the analysis of the natural language. Tarski’s analysis emphasized the T-scheme as the basic intuitive principle for the concept of truth, but it also showed its inconsistency with the classical logic. Tarski’s solution is to preserve the classical logic and to restrict the scheme: we can talk about the truth of sentences of a language only inside another essentially richer metalanguage. This solution is in harmony with the idea of reflexivity of thinking and it has become very fertile for mathematics and science in general. But it has normative nature | truth paradoxes are avoided in a way that in such frame we cannot even express paradoxical sentences. It is also too restrictive because, for the same reason we cannot express a situation in which there is a circular reference of some sentences to other sentences, no matter how common and harmless such a situation may be. Kripke showed that there is no natural restriction to the T-scheme and we have to accept it. But then we must also accept the riskiness of sentences | the possibility that under some circumstances a sentence does not have the classical truth value but it is undetermined. This leads to languages with three-valued semantics. Kripke did not give any definite model, but he gave a theoretical frame for investigations of various models | each fixed point in each three-valued semantics can be a model for the concept of truth. The solutions also have normative nature | we can express the paradoxical sentences, but we escape a contradiction by declaring them undetermined. Such a solution could become an analytical solution only if we provide the analysis that would show in a substantial way that it is the solution that models the concept of truth. Kripke took some steps in the direction of finding an analytical solution. He preferred the strong Kleene three-valued semantics for which he wrote it was "appropriate" but did not explain why it was appropriate. One reason for such a choice is probably that Kripke finds paradoxical sentences meaningful. This eliminates the weak Kleene three valued semantics which corresponds to the idea that paradoxical sentences are meaningless, and thus indeterminate. Another reason could be that the strong Kleene three valued semantics has the so-called investigative interpretation. According to this interpretation, this semantics corresponds to the classical determination of truth, whereby all sentences that do not have an already determined value are temporarily considered indeterminate. When we determine the truth value of these sentences, then we can also determine the truth value of the sentences that are composed of them. Kripke supplemented this investigative interpretation with an intuition about learning the concept of truth. That intuition deals with how we can teach someone who is a competent user of an initial language (without the predicate of truth T) to use sentences that contain the predicate T. That person knows which sentences of the initial language are true and which are not. We give her the rule to assign the T attribute to the former and deny that attribute to the latter. In that way, some new sentences that contain the predicate of truth, and which were indeterminate until then, become determinate. So the person gets a new set of true and false sentences with which he continues the procedure. This intuition leads directly to the smallest fixed point of strong Kleene semantics as an analytically acceptable model for the logical notion of truth. However, since this process is usually saturated only on some transfinite ordinal, this intuition, by climbing on ordinals, increasingly becomes a metaphor. This thesis is an attempt to give an analytical solution to truth paradoxes. It gives an analysis of why and how some sentences lack the classical truth value. The starting point is basic intuition according to which paradoxical sentences are meaningful (because we understand what they are talking about well, moreover we use it for determining their truth values), but they witness the failure of the classical procedure of determining their truth value in some "extreme" circumstances. Paradoxes emerge because the classical procedure of the truth value determination does not always give a classically supposed (and expected) answer. The analysis shows that such an assumption is an unjustified generalization from common situations to all situations. We can accept the classical procedure of the truth value determination and consequently the internal semantic structure of the language, but we must reject the universality of the exterior assumption of a successful ending of the procedure. The consciousness of this transforms paradoxes to normal situations inherent to the classical procedure. Some sentences, although meaningful, when we evaluate them according to the classical truth conditions, the classical conditions do not assign them a unique value. We can assign to them the third value, \undetermined", as a sign of definitive failure of the classical procedure. An analysis of the propagation of the failure in the structure of sentences gives exactly the strong Kleene three-valued semantics, not as an investigative procedure, as it occurs in Kripke, but as the classical truth determination procedure accompanied by the propagation of its own failure. An analysis of the circularities in the determination of the classical truth value gives the criterion of when the classical procedure succeeds and when it fails, when the sentences will have the classical truth value and when they will not. It turns out that the truth values of sentences thus obtained give exactly the largest intrinsic fixed point of the strong Kleene three-valued semantics. In that way, the argumentation is given for that choice among all fixed points of all monotone three-valued semantics for the model of the logical concept of truth. An immediate mathematical description of the fixed point is given, too. It has also been shown how this language can be semantically completed to the classical language which in many respects appears a natural completion of the process of thinking about the truth values of the sentences of a given language. Thus the final model is a language that has one interpretation and two systems of sentence truth evaluation, primary and final evaluation. The language through the symbol T speaks of its primary truth valuation, which is precisely the largest intrinsic fixed point of the strong Kleene three valued semantics. Its final truth valuation is the semantic completion of the first in such a way that all sentences that are not true in the primary valuation are false in the final valuation. (shrink)

The Routledge International Handbook of Psychoanalysis and Philosophy provides a rich panoramic view of what philosophy offers or disturbs in psychoanalysis and what it represents for psychoanalytic theory and practice. The thirty-three chapters present a broad range of interfaces and reciprocities between various aspects of psychoanalysis and philosophy. It demonstrates the vital connection between the two disciplines: psychoanalysis cannot make any practical sense if it is not entirely perceived within a philosophical context. Written by a team of world-leading experts, (...) including established scholars, psychoanalysts and emerging talents, the Handbook investigates and discusses the psychoanalytic schools and their philosophical underpinning, as well as contemporary applied topics. Organized into five sections, this volume investigates and discusses how psychoanalysis stands in relation to leading philosophies such as Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Kant; philosophical perspectives on psychoanalytic schools such as Freud, Klein, Bion, Kohut, and Lacan; how psychoanalysis addresses controversial topics in philosophy such as truth, language and symbolism, ethics, and theories of mind. The last section addresses contemporary applied subjects in psychoanalytic thought: colonialism, gender, race, and ecology. This Handbook offers a novel and comprehensive outlook vital for scholars, philosophers, practicing psychoanalysts and therapists alike. The book will serve as a source for courses in psychoanalysis, philosophy of science, epistemology, ethics, semiotics, cognitive science, consciousness, gender, race, post-colonialism theories, clinical theory, Freud's studies, both in universities and psychoanalytic training programs and institutes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Rationalist Empiricism: A Theory of Speculative Critique by Nathan BrownGreg EllermannBrown, Nathan. Rationalist Empiricism: A Theory of Speculative Critique. Fordham University Press, 2021. 318pp.Nathan Brown's Rationalist Empiricism is, above all, a book about philosophical method. It is also a highly significant study of the conceptual architecture of Marxism, developed by way of a critical return to the lesson of Althusser. Drawing on a range of disparate (...) materials–from the works of Descartes, Hume, Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, and Meillassoux to contemporary experiments in digital photography and metrology–Brown demonstrates the necessity of "a mutual interruption of reason and experience" (31) for any theoretical or political practice that would avoid falling into ideological complacency.The book opens with an appraisal of "the speculative turn" (1) in 21st-century thought, a turn Brown characterizes as an intellectual dead-end. He remarks that the various new materialisms and object-oriented ontologies of the last decades were united by an inattention to method. Unconcerned to establish the necessity of their claims or with the relation between reasoning and reality, these philosophies made assertions instead of arguments; they mistook dogmatism for speculation.For Brown, it is the dialectic–specifically, the dialectic of reason and experience–that promises to renew the possibility of speculative thinking. Such renewal will entail refusing "the severance of speculation from critique" (2). It also requires thinking through a more basic problem: the relation between rationalism and empiricism. While rationalism "explore[s] what has to be thought according to the internal order and consistency of ideas," empiricism, as Brown has it, "claim[s] the genesis of ideas in experience" (3). Since Kant's first Critique, this binary and the effort to overcome it have set the terms of philosophical debate. Brown's striking contention is that the search for a synthesis or a hidden ground uniting these two positions (as, for instance, in Deleuze or Michel Henry) invariably leads us back to the transcendental–an improvement on the dogmatism of contemporary theory but a reduction of knowledge to "conditions of experience" [End Page 128] nonetheless (47). Brown therefore proposes another path: "a relational disjunction of rationalism and empiricism" animated by "the critical power of the tension between [them] to check one another's claims and to propel those claims further" (3). In other words, he develops a methodological dialectic whose two poles-the rationalist and the empiricist-alternately take on speculative and critical functions. There is no static alignment of the key categories in Brown's book. "Speculation and critique cannot be parceled out," he writes, "according to the division of reason and experience. Metaphysics, science, politics: each of these fields relies integrally upon the conflict and complementarity of reason and experience, their 'epistemological polarity'" (250). In Bachelard's terms, pivotal for the overall argument, reason and experience must be allowed to "transmute," "propel," and "say 'no' to one another" (8). It is their ungrounded dialectical relation that sustains true speculative thought.This methodological position has profound ontological implications. Looking to Althusser, Brown finds the beginnings of a theory of rationalist empiricism in the structural Marxist notion of the "concrete-in-thought" (15-16): the self-critical and experimentally verified knowledge of a science. Crucially, for Althusser there can be no concrete-in-thought without a "concrete-real," external to theory itself (15). Developing to the fullest this underappreciated point, Brown shows that rationalist empiricism must be a realism. Thus, the book's second, third, and fourth chapters elaborate a continuous argument concerning "the primacy of being over thought" (59), and the relationship between speculative and scientific knowledge. The central question is how speculation might extend or "extrapolate from the exteriorizing force of science, without being reducible to its forms of experience" (261). Refracting Hegel's Logic through the thought of Heidegger and Meillassoux, Brown ultimately offers a new account of the ontological difference–between being and beings, between speculative truth and "ontic," scientific knowledge–that privileges neither side and insists on their coordination. Once again, he declines to seek a synthesis, arguing that "true critique" (as Hegel characterized his speculative method) depends on "the ontological primacy of becoming" (91), on an absolute time bound up with... (shrink)

Leibniz's philosophy of time, often seen as a precursor to current forms of relationalism and causal theories of time, has rightly earned the admiration of his more recent counterparts in the philosophy of science. In this article, I examine Leibniz's philosophy of time from a new perspective: the role that tense and non-tensed temporal properties/relations play in it. Specifically, I argue that Leibniz's philosophy of time is best (and non-anachronistically) construed as a non-tensed theory of time, one that dispenses (...) with tensed temporal properties such as past, present, and future. In arguing for this thesis, I focus on the three facets of Leibniz's philosophy most relevant for evaluating his commitment to a B-theory of time: (1) the nature of change, (2) the reality of the future, and (3) the truth-conditions for tensed temporal statements. Despite prima facie evidence to the contrary, I show that a close examination of Leibniz's views on these topics provides compelling evidence for interpreting his philosophy of time as a B-theory of time. (shrink)

An analysis of the role of language in basic and applied science from the semantics of science and the theory of reference requires several steps. First, to specify the field of analysis in the light of several factors: the semantic problems of science; the reference in its triple dimension of relation between language and reality, of referent and of transmission in science; and the link between meaning and reference in science.Second, to consider the central approach to the semantics of (...) science, which forks into two main directions: the semantic line and the pragmatic path. De facto, they lead to different interpretations of the role of language in basic science and in applied science. The semantic line focuses on the content expressed through terms, statements and theories, which has been influential in important philosophical trends and still is prominent in some versions of scientific realism. Meanwhile, the pragmatic path emphasizes the meaning as use, which has influenced philosophers of science of diverse tendencies, such as S. Toulmin, Th. Kuhn, American pragmatists and supporters of the methodological pluralism.Third, to make explicit the leading conceptions regarding the theory of reference, both for the formal sciences and for the empirical sciences. There are a number of options, four of which are analyzed here. The view associated with the semantic role and the semantic value, which connects semantic, epistemological and ontological realms in basic science and in applied science. The causal theory of reference, which has shifted towards internal realism. Anti-realistic semantics, where truth is replaced by proof and the reference is the use made by someone of a term in a context. Kuhn’s approach in his linguistic period, where he rethinks the scientific revolutions taking into account the causal theory of reference.Fourth, to be aware of the consequences of these analyses for basic science and applied science in two ways: on the one hand, for the semantic differences between them, and, on the other, for the perspective of reference. (shrink)

As one of the first modern philosophers, Georg Simmel systematically developed a “relativistic world view” (Simmel 2004, VI). In this paper I attempt to examine Simmel’s relativistic answer to the question of truth. I trace his main arguments regarding the concept of truth and present his justification of epistemic relativism. In doing so, I also want to show that some of Simmel’s claims are surprisingly timely. Simmel’s relativistic concept of truth is supported by an evolutionary argument. The (...) first part of this paper outlines that pragmatic foundation of his epistemology. The second part of the paper shows that Simmel develops what today would be called a coherence theory of truth. He presents his coherentist view that every belief is true only in relation to another one primarily as a theory of epistemic justification. The third part turns to Simmel’s original way of dealing with the (in)famous self-refutation charge against relativism. (shrink)

This entry explores Charles Peirce's account of truth in terms of the end or ‘limit’ of inquiry. This account is distinct from – and arguably more objectivist than – views of truth found in other pragmatists such as James and Rorty. The roots of the account in mathematical concepts is explored, and it is defended from objections that it is (i) incoherent, (ii) in its faith in convergence, too realist and (iii) in its ‘internal realism’, not realist (...) enough. (shrink)

Nonclassical theories of truth that take truth to be transparent have some obvious advantages over any classical theory of truth. But several authors have recently argued that there’s also a big disadvantage of nonclassical theories as compared to their “external” classical counterparts: proof-theoretic strength. While conceding the relevance of this, the paper argues that there is a natural way to beef up extant internal theories so as to remove their proof-theoretic disadvantage. It is suggested that (...) the resulting internal theories are preferable to their external counterparts. (shrink)

I offer you some theories of intellectual obligations and rights (virtue Ethics): initially, RBT (a Right to Believe Truth, if something is true it follows one has a right to believe it), and, NDSM (one has no right to believe a contradiction, i.e., No right to commit Doxastic Self-Mutilation). Evidence for both below. Anthropology, Psychology, computer software, Sociology, and the neurosciences prove things about human beliefs, and History, Economics, and comparative law can provide evidence of value about theories of (...) rights. However, insofar as we have methods within Philosophy to help us formulate precise concepts of 'belief' and 'rights', methods that also help us to prove links (or absence thereof) amongst families of concepts of rights and belief, our discipline is in and of itself capable of sound reasoning about issues as puzzling as the following. Suppose a Jane who does not believe in God yet who believes she ought to so believe: Jane is undergoing doxastic moral regret (moral regret for lack of faith). We have all known such Janes and perhaps at one time or another even been one. Paradox: given RBT and NDSM, Jane as described not only does not exist, Jane cannot exist. Thus, to enrich the ways in which Philosophy need not get all its evidence from other academic disciplines, I present a brief introduction to what I call Neutral Universal Frames (NUFs). NUFs solve hard puzzles about interactions among modal concepts of belief and rights, concepts that occur in RBT, NDSM and the description of our Janes. NUFs for theories precisely articulated via any two or more modal concepts are a powerful and immensely general set of tools enabling us to define rich theories of truth ("models on frames") to test philosophical theories for internal consistency and to prove the existence of connections (or absence thereof) amongst alternative articulations of philosophical theories. NUFs thereby add to the constructive knowledge producing way Logics intersect with Philosophy of Religion. And we will soon see why Jane, be she named 'Jane' or known simply as you: cannot exist. Read on at your own risk. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 537 tion of his three dialogues, and of course there are several references to Hume's intern= parable Dialogues. The bibliographic essay is useful with respect to general works and period pieces but unfortunately does little to help those who are seeking further help in understanding an individual writer. Professor France's work is an invaluable guide nevertheless for those who realize that authors, even philosophers, do not write (...) in a cultural vacuum. NICHOLASCAPALDI Queens College, CUNY Die Auseinandersetzung yon ldealismus und Realismus in Fichtes Wissenscha/tslehre. By Ingeborg Schfissler. (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1972. Pp. 182. DM 24.50) For Fichte scholars this closely argued and well organized study of the foundations of Fichte's Wissenscha/tslehre is simply a must. American philosophers generally, however, will not become Fichte enthusiasts after reading this book. But this is not the fault of the authoress, but of Fichte. The key question which Dr. SchiJssler raises is, What role does realism play in Fichte's transcendental idealism? With this question in mind she examines Fichte's "foundation of the entire theory of science" of 1794-1795 and related matters, and the "theory of science" of 1804, together with the lecture of 1813. As Fichte originally saw the task of philosophy it was to explain theoretical, i.e., scientific, consciousness in terms of its own foundation. In 1804, however, the task was conceived as presentation of absolute truth; and in 1813, Fichte tried to understand the theory of science as a theory of appearances. Dr. Schfissler's thesis is that all three approaches are necessary; that, in fact, the changes in Fichte's conception of what a theory of science is or ought to be are grounded in the nature of transcendental philosophy itself. The book is not something one reads for relaxation; its sustained and detailed arguments militate against that. But it is a highly illuminating study, and well worth the effort of careful analysis. W. H. WE~mSTBR Florida State University The Manifold in Perception. Theories of Art.from Kant to Hildebrand. By Michael Pedro. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972. Oxford-Warburg Studies) This is a survey of theories of art of Kant, Schiller, Herbart, Hildebrand, Schopenhauer and Fiedler. One may question the value of a re-statement of this sort, over simply another reading of the works of the authors themselves. Pedro's answer may be found in the Preface and again in a more extended statement in the conclusion. "German aesthetic theory from Kant through to the end of the nineteenth century seemed to contain valuable critical ideas quite absent from contemporary philosophical writing." Pedro's attempt has been to "re-locate notions in current use, like 'aesthetic detachment', within the sustained systematic discourse of which they were once part. This seemed a way both of uncovering a number of assumptions which have been constraining writing on art for some time, and of clarifying a number of crucial insights of earlier theorists." The author's account is almost entirely expository, its negative critical questions being limited almost exclusively to Herbart. Yet even here, when the author indicates that Herbart's theory of mind "exhibits certain very basic logical difficulties," he adds that 538 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY "they are difficulties which have a particular importance in the discussion of art.... " Podro's clarification is largely made through the asking of questions which the authors themselves did not ask and then suggesting answers to these questions in the light of what the authors did say. The two chapters on Schiller form the core of the book. Schiller's theory of art and aesthetic education of man is placed as central to Podro's account of an aesthetic tradition beginning with Kant and ending with Fiedler. The "tradition" detailed in Podro's book is described as having two underlying assumptions. The first was that any account of art must indicate distinctive or at least characteristic uses of our perception, uses which if not exclusive to art are at least necessary to it, and which are seen in art in a particularly striking way. The second assumption was that art involves our attitudes, in the sense of our serious purposes as... (shrink)

At the centre of the traditional discussion of truth is the question of how truth is defined. Recent research, especially with the development of deflationist accounts of truth, has tended to take truth as an undefined primitive notion governed by axioms, while the liar paradox and cognate paradoxes pose problems for certain seemingly natural axioms for truth. In this book, Volker Halbach examines the most important axiomatizations of truth, explores their properties and shows how (...) the logical results impinge on the philosophical topics related to truth. In particular, he shows that the discussion on topics such as deflationism about truth depends on the solution of the paradoxes. His book is an invaluable survey of the logical background to the philosophical discussion of truth, and will be indispensable reading for any graduate or professional philosopher in theories of truth. (shrink)

This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the special workshop "Truth and Objectivity in Law and Morals," held at the 26th World Congress of the IVR. The papers deal with diverse but correlated issues such as the search for truth in and through legal argumentation; the intelligible character of rules inside theories of interpretation which guarantee the coherence and the integrity of law; the role of hermeneutic analysis in the construction of the objectivity of law; the (...) procedural and contextual aspects of objectivity in legal reasoning; the role of objectivity in the distinction between the context of justification and the context of discovery; the problem about truth of normative propositions and legal statements; the incompatibility of non factualism with the traditional account of validity and legality; as well as the possibility of objectivity in morals. (shrink)

Pragmatic theories of truth need to pass the pragmatic test: they need to make a difference. Unfortunately, defenders of the pragmatic theory have rarely applied this test. I argue that a Deweyan pragmatic account of truth passes the test by identifying the political and epistemic dangers of certain types of social networks that create a durable consensus around false beliefs. To better understand Dewey’s account of truth I propose an excursion through Wittgenstein’s later views on knowledge (...) and certainty. (shrink)

Theories of Truth provides a clear, critical introduction to one of the most difficult areas of philosophy. It surveys all of the major philosophical theories of truth, presenting the crux of the issues involved at a level accessible to nonexperts yet in a manner sufficiently detailed and original to be of value to professional scholars. Kirkham's systematic treatment and meticulous explanations of terminology ensure that readers will come away from this book with a comprehensive general understanding of one (...) of philosophy's thorniest set of topics. -/- Included are discussions of the correspondence, coherence, pragmatic, semantic, performative, redundancy, appraisal, and truth-as-justification theories. There are also chapters or sections of chapters on the liar paradox, three-valued logic, Field's critique of Tarski, Davidson's program, Dummett's theory of linguistic competence, satisfaction, recursion, the extension/intension distinction, and an explanation of how theories of justification, properly understood, differ from theories of truth. -/- A persistent theme is that philosophers have too often failed to recognize that not all theories of truth are intended to answer the same question. When the various questions are made distinct, it is apparent that many of the "debates" in this field are really cases of philosophers talking past one another. There is much less disagreement within the field than has commonly been thought. (shrink)

This book contains more than 15 essays that explore issues in truth, existence, and explanation. It features cutting-edge research in the philosophy of mathematics and logic. Renowned philosophers, mathematicians, and younger scholars provide an insightful contribution to the lively debate in this interdisciplinary field of inquiry. The essays look at realism vs. anti-realism as well as inflationary vs. deflationary theories of truth. The contributors also consider mathematical fictionalism, structuralism, the nature and role of axioms, constructive existence, and generality. (...) In addition, coverage also looks at the explanatory role of mathematics and the philosophical relevance of mathematical explanation. The book will appeal to a broad mathematical and philosophical audience. It contains work from FilMat, the Italian Network for the Philosophy of Mathematics. These papers collected here were also presented at their second international conference, held at the University of Chieti-Pescara, May 2016. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Spinoza and the Theory of Organism HANS JONAS I CARTESIANDUALISMlanded speculation on the nature of life in an impasse: intelligible as, on principles of mechanics, the correlation of structure and function became within the res extensa, that of structure-plus-function with feeling or experience (modes of the res cogitans) was lost in the bifurcation, and thereby the fact of life itself became unintelligible at the same time that the (...) explanation of its bodily performance seemed to be assured. The impasse became manifest in Occasionalism : its tour de force of an extraneous, divine "synchronization" of the outer and the inner world (the latter denied to animals) not only suffered from its extreme artificiality, the common failing of such ad hoc constructions, but even at so high a cost failed to accomplish its theoretical purpose by its own terms. For the animal machine, like any machine, raises beyond the question of the "how" that of the "what for" of its functioning---of the purpose for which it had thus been constructed by its maker.1 Its performance, however devoid of immanent teleology, must serve an end, and that end must be someone's end. This end may (directly) be itself, as indeed Descartes had implied when declaring self-preservation to be the effect of the functioning of the organic automaton. In that case the existence as such of the machine would be its end--either terminally, or in turn to benefit something else. In the former case, the machine would have to be more than a machine, for a mere machine cannot enioy its existence. But since, by the rigorous conception of the res extensa, it cannot be more than a machine, its function and/or existence must serve something other than itself. Automata in Descartes ' time were mainly for entertainment (rather than work). But the raison d'etre of the living kingdom could not well be seen in God's indulging his mechanical abilities or in the amusement of celestial spectators--especially since mere complexity of arrangement does not create new quality and thus add something to the unrelieved sameness of the simple substratum that might enrich the spectrum of being. For quality, beyond the primitive determinations of the extended per se, is the subjective creature of sensation, the confused representation of quantity in a mind; and thus organisms cannot harbor it because as mere machines they lack mentality, and pure spirits cannot because they lack sensuality, or the privilege of confusion and thereby of illusion with its possible enjoyment. And as to their intellectual enjoyment, even that, deprived of the thrill of discovery by the same token, would pale in the contemplation of what to sufficiently large The concept of "machine," adopted for its strict confinementto efficientcause, is still a finalisticconcept,even thoughthe final cause is no longer internal to the entity, as a mode of its own operation,but external to it as antecedent design. [43] 44 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY intellects is nothing but the ever-repeated exemplification of the same few, elementary (and ultimately trivial) truths. There remained, then, the time-honored--Stoic as well as Christian--idea that plants and animals are for the benefit of Man. Indeed, since the existence of a living world is the necessary condition for the existence of any of its members, the self-justifying nature of at least one such member (= species) would justify the existence of the whole. In Stoicism, Man provided this end by his possession of reason, which makes him the culmination of a terrestrial scale of being that is also self-justifying throughout all its grades (the end as the best of many that are good in degrees) ; in Christianity, by his possession of an immortal soul, which makes him the sole imago Dei in creation (the end as the sole issue at stake) ; and Cartesian dualism radicalized this latter position by making man even the sole possessor of inwardness or "soul" of any kind, thus the only one of whom "end" can meaningfully be predicated as he alone can entertain ends. All other life then, the product of physical necessity, can be considered his means. However, this traditional idea, in its anthropocentric vanity never a... (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to elaborate the many literary allusions that Simone Weil used in her ultimate work: L' Enracinement, translated as The Need for Roots, to achieve her goal of encouraging her fellow countrymen to create a new postwar society. Understanding how she used the riches of the French and Western Literary Cannon, less easily grasped by those not educated in the French Education system, enriches the understanding of Weil's purpose and skill in writing on many levels, (...) simultaneously for different target audiences. Underlying her stress on the need for truth and honesty about a county's past and present, with discernable respect for every person, is her foundational belief in the spiritual destiny of every human being. Examining her literary allusions in detail to show her clever subversion of traditionally accepted interpretations brings a new dimension to Simone Weil studies, while underlining the relevance of this essay to contemporary dilemmas. (shrink)

According to the truth-conduciveness problem of coherentism, the coherence theory of justification can hardly show that coherentist justification is truth-conducive. This problem is generally conceived as the most recalcitrant problem with the coherence theory. The purpose of this paper is to show that it does not pose a serious problem for a certain version of coherentism, namely a Sellarsian explanatory coherence theory of justification combined with the deflationary theory of truth. On this version (...) of coherentism, our epistemic goal is to gradually improve our conceptual framework so as to maximize its explanatory coherence, and there is no substantial norm of truth independent of the norms of justification, so that we cannot evaluate the truth-conduciveness of a belief independently of the norms of justification. I argue that this version of coherentism can cope with the truth-conduciveness problem. (shrink)

Putnam presents a Peircean characterization of truth in an attempt to avoid relativism, which he argues is incoherent. I argue that Putnam has not avoided relativism. According to Putnam's theory of understanding, we must understand all claims concerning a Peircean community in terms of our own experiences and in terms of our own standards of rational assertability. Truth simply collapses into warranted assertability. At this point Putnam appeals to the objectivity of our standards of assertability. But Putnam's (...) notion of "objectivity for us" is a notion of objectivity which the relativist can happily adopt. Putnam's failure to provide more than a superficial distinction between internal realism and relativism means that internal realism faces the same problems which Putnam directs at "self-refuting" relativism. (shrink)

W. van Orman Quine is one of the leading philosophers in America today. His thinking, however, has received little attention from philosophers in continental Europe. This book is a systematic and critical account of Quine's philosophy which aims at isolating what is of lasting value in his work. Each of his major theses is submitted to a thorough examination both from within and from without his general standpoint. Quine's positions have changed a great deal over the years in response to (...) external criticism and to internal stresses and strains. These changes are described and assessed. Quine's rejection of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy is considered in the light of non-monotonic logic. The multi-farious versions of his holism are brought together and evaluated. Dummett's objection to the effect that holism is inconsistent with empiricism is refuted. lt is argued, however, that the controversial thesis of the indeterminacy of translation becomes implausible as soon as learnability constraints are brought to bear on the matter. Quine's new definition of logical truth in terms of grammatical structure is vindicated. It is shown how the apparent conflict between his earlier and his later views on ontology can be superseded. Can Quine hold a relativist view of ontology and at the same time maintain a non-relativist theory of truth? Can he hold that truth is internal to theories and claim that scientific theories are underdetermined by observational data without lending support to relativism? An affirmative answer to the first question is defended. It is argued, however, that Quine could not meet the second challenge. Quine's penetrating criticism of modal logic has prompted several research programs. Paul Gochet exhibits the interrelations between these programs and argues that Quine's objections against modal logic can be met without any commitment to doctrines such as essentialism. Of interest to: Philosophers, logicians, linguists. (shrink)

Our computational metaphysics group describes its use of automated reasoning tools to study Leibniz’s theory of concepts. We start with a reconstruction of Leibniz’s theory within the theory of abstract objects (henceforth ‘object theory’). Leibniz’s theory of concepts, under this reconstruction, has a non-modal algebra of concepts, a concept-containment theory of truth, and a modal metaphysics of complete individual concepts. We show how the object-theoretic reconstruction of these components of Leibniz’s theory can (...) be represented for investigation by means of automated theorem provers and finite model builders. The fundamental theorem of Leibniz’s theory is derived using these tools. (shrink)