Presentists, who believe that only present objects exist, face a problem concerning truths about the past. Presentists should (but cannot) locate truth-makers for truths about the past. What can presentists say in response? We identify two rival factions ‘upstanding’ and ‘nefarious’ presentists. Upstanding presentists aim to meet the challenge, positing presently existing truth-makers for truths about the past; nefarious presentists aim to shirk their responsibilities, using the language of truth-maker theory but without paying any ontological price. We argue that presentists (...) should be nefarious presentists. (shrink)

In a series of works, Pablo Cobreros, Paul Égré, David Ripley and Robert van Rooij have proposed a nontransitive system (call it ‘_K__3__L__P_’) as a basis for a solution to the semantic paradoxes. I critically consider that proposal at three levels. At the level of the background logic, I present a conception of classical logic on which _K__3__L__P_ fails to vindicate classical logic not only in terms of structural principles, but also in terms of operational ones. At the level of (...) the theory of truth, I raise a cluster of philosophical difficulties for a _K__3__L__P_-based system of naive truth, all variously related to the fact that such a system proves things that would seem already by themselves repugnant, even in the absence of transitivity. At the level of the theory of validity, I consider an extension of the _K__3__L__P_-based system of naive validity that is supposed to certify that validity in that system does not fall short of naive validity, argue that such an extension is untenable in that its nontriviality depends on the inadmissibility of a certain irresistible instance of transitivity (whence the advertised “final cut”) and conclude on this basis that the _K__3__L__P_-based system of naive validity cannot coherently be adopted either. At all these levels, a crucial role is played by certain metaentailments and by the extra strength they afford over the corresponding entailments: on the one hand, such strength derives from considerations that would seem just as compelling in a general nontransitive framework, but, on the other hand, such strength wreaks havoc in the particular setting of _K__3__L__P_. (shrink)

In other works, I’ve proposed a solution to the semantic paradoxes which, at the technical level, basically relies on failure of contraction. I’ve also suggested that, at the philosophical level, contraction fails because of the instability of certain states of affairs. In this paper, I try to make good on that suggestion.

This paper argues that the traditional characterization of the notion of paradox — an apparently valid argument with apparently true premises and an apparently false conclusion — is too narrow; there are paradoxes that do not satisfy it. After discussing, and discarding, some alternatives, an outline of a new characterization of the notion of paradox is presented. A paradox is found to be an apparently valid argument such that, apparently, it does not present the kind of commitment to the conclusion (...) that should be implied by an acceptance of the truth of the premises and the validity of the argument. (shrink)

Consideration of a paradox originally discovered by John Buridan provides a springboard for a general solution to paradoxes within the Liar family. The solution rests on a philosophical defence of truth-value-gaps and is consistent (non-dialetheist), avoids ‘revenge’ problems, imports no ad hoc assumptions, is not applicable to only a proper subset of the semantic paradoxes and implies no restriction of the expressive capacities of language.

I argue that van Fraassen's Judy Benjamin Problem and Elga's Sleeping Beauty Problem have the same structure.

In a series of articles, Dan Lopez De Sa and Elia Zardini argue that several theorists have recently employed instances of paradoxical reasoning, while failing to see its problematic nature because it does not immediately (or obviously) yield inconsistency. In contrast, Lopez De Sa and Zardini claim that resultant inconsistency is not a necessary condition for paradoxicality. It is our contention that, even given their broader understanding of paradox, their arguments fail to undermine the instances of reasoning they attack, either (...) because they fail to see everything that is at work in that reasoning, or because they misunderstand what it is that the reasoning aims to show. (shrink)

We present an overview of typed and untyped disquotational truth theories with the emphasis on their (non)conservativity over the base theory of syntax. Two types of conservativity are discussed: syntactic and semantic. We observe in particular that TB—one of the most basic disquotational theories—is not semantically conservative over its base; we show also that an untyped disquotational theory PTB is a syntactically conservative extension of Peano Arithmetic.

Milne [2005] argued that a sentence saying of itself that it does not have a truthmaker is true but does not have a truthmaker. López de Sa and Zardini [2006] worried that, by parity of reasoning, one should conclude that a sentence saying of itself that it is not both true and short is true but not short. Recently, Milne [2013] and Gołosz [2015] have replied to López de Sa and Zardini’s worry, arguing in different ways that the worry is (...) illfounded. In this paper, I’ll address these replies and argue that they fail to dispel López de Sa and Zardini’s worry, bringing out in the process some broader points concerning the use of self-referential sentences in arguments in philosophy of logic. (shrink)

After introducing semantic anti-realism and the paradox of knowability, the paper offers a reconstruction of the anti-realist argument from understanding. The proposed reconstruction validates an unrestricted principle to the effect that truth requires the existence of a certain kind of “demonstration”. The paper shows that that principle fails to imply the problematic instances of the original unrestricted feasible-knowability principle but that the overall view underlying the new principle still has unrestricted epistemic consequences. Appealing precisely to the paradox of knowability, the (...) paper also argues, against the BHK semantics, for the non- constructive character of the demonstrations envisaged by semantic anti-realism, and contends that, in such setting, one of the most natural arguments for a broadly intuitionist revision of classical logic loses all its force.Tras presentar el anti-realismo semántico y la paradoja de la cognoscibilidad, el artículo ofrece una reconstrucción del argumento anti-realista basado en la comprensión. La reconstrucción que se propone valida un principio irrestricto, del que se sigue que la verdad requiere la existencia de un determinado tipo de “demostración”. El artículo muestra que este principio no implica las instancias problemáticas del original principio irrestricto de la cognoscibilidad realizable, y que la concepción general que subyace al nuevo principio todavía tiene consecuencias epistémicas irrestrictas. Apelando precisamente a la paradoja de la cognoscibilidad, el artículo argumenta además, en contra de la semántica BHK, a favor del carácter no constructivo de las demostraciones que contempla el anti-realismo semántico, y defiende que, en ese marco, uno de los argumentos más naturales a favor de una revisión a grandes rasgos intuicionista de la lógica clásica pierde toda su fuerza. (shrink)

In ‘A Consistent Way with Paradox’, Laurence Goldstein (2009) clarifies his solution to the liar, which he touts as revenge immune . In addition, he (Ibid.) responds to one of the objections that Armour-Garb and Woodbridge (2006) raise against certain solutions to the open pair and argues that his proffered solution to the liar family of paradoxes undermines what they (Ibid.) call the dialetheic conjecture . In this paper, after critically evaluating Goldstein’s response to A-G&W, I turn to his proposed (...) solution to the liar paradox, where I show that it is difficult to see how it manages to avoid that conjecture. (shrink)

This anthology of the very latest research on truth features the work of recognized luminaries in the field, put together following a rigorous refereeing process. Along with an introduction outlining the central issues in the field, it provides a unique and unrivaled view of contemporary work on the nature of truth, with papers selected from key conferences in 2011 such as Truth Be Told, Truth at Work, Paradoxes of Truth and Denotation and Axiomatic Theories of Truth. Studying the nature of (...) the concept of ‘truth’ has always been a core role of philosophy, but recent years have been a boom time in the topic. With a wealth of recent conferences examining the subject from various angles, this collection of essays recognizes the pressing need for a volume that brings scholars up to date on the arguments. Offering academics and graduate students alike a much-needed repository of today’s cutting-edge work in this vital topic of philosophy, the volume is required reading for anyone needing to keep abreast of developments, and is certain to act as a catalyst for further innovation and research. (shrink)

In this paper we explain our pretense account of truth-talk and apply it in a diagnosis and treatment of the Liar Paradox. We begin by assuming that some form of deflationism is the correct approach to the topic of truth. We then briefly motivate the idea that all T-deflationists should endorse a fictionalist view of truth-talk, and, after distinguishing pretense-involving fictionalism (PIF) from error- theoretic fictionalism (ETF), explain the merits of the former over the latter. After presenting the basic framework (...) of our PIF account of truth-talk, we demonstrate a few advantages it offers over T-deflationist accounts that do not explicitly acknowledge pretense at work in the discourse. In turning to the Liar Paradox, we explain how the quasi-anaphoric functioning that our account attributes to truth-talk provides a diagnosis of the Liar Paradox (and other instances of semantic pathology) as having no content—in the sense of not specifying any of what we call M-conditions. At the same time, however, we vindicate the intuition that we can understand liar sentences, thereby avoiding one standard objection to “meaningless strategy” responses to the Liar Paradox. With this diagnosis in place, we then, by way of treatment, introduce a new predicate, ‘semantically defective’, and show how the explanation we give for its application allows for a consistent, yet revenge-immune, (dis)solution of the Liar Paradox, and semantic pathology generally. (shrink)

It is argued that there are sentences and pairs of sentences, belonging to the family of ‘truth-tellers’ and ‘no–no sentences’, such that it is possible to prove (and, hence come to know) their truth-value. It is, therefore, concluded that the kind of pathological feature affecting some truth-tellers and no–no sentences is not due to the specific kind of circularity characterizing their truth-conditions and must, thus, depend on some other reason.