The presidential address: truth: the identity theory

I want to promote what I shall call (unoriginally, and for the sake of its having a name ) ‘the identity theory of truth’. I suggest that other accounts put forward as theories of truth are genuine rivals to it, but are unacceptable. A certain conception of thinkables belongs with the identity theory’s conception of truth. I introduce these conceptions in Part I, by reference to John McDowell’s Mind and World; and I show why they have a place in an identity theory, which I introduce by reference to Frege. In Part II, I elaborate on the conception of thinkables, with a view to demonstrating that the identity theory’s conception of truth is defensible. Part III is concerned with the theory’s relation to some recent work on the concept of truth: I hope to show that the identity theorist not only has a defensible conception of truth, but also, in the present state of play, has appropriate ambitions

The Birth of Semantics

We attempt here to trace the evolution of Frege’s thought about truth. What most frames the way we approach the problem is a recognition that hardly any of Frege’s most familiar claims about truth appear in his earliest work. We argue that Frege’s mature views about truth emerge from a fundamental re-thinking of the nature of logic instigated, in large part, by a sustained engagement with the work of George Boole and his followers, after the publication of Begriffsschrift and the appearance of critical reviews by members of the Boolean school

Formal Arithmetic Before Grundgesetze

A speculative investigation of how Frege's logical views change between Begriffsschrift and Grundgesetze and how this might have affected the formal development of logicism

How to Hintikkize a Frege

The paper deals with the main contribution of the Finnish logician Jaakko Hintikka: epistemic logic, in particular the 'static' version of the system based on the formal analysis of the concepts of knowledge and belief. I propose to take a different look at this philosophical logic and to consider it from the opposite point of view of the philosophy of logic. At first, two theories of meaning are described and associated with two competing theories of linguistic competence. In a second step, I draw the conclusion that Hintikka's epistemic logic constitutes a sort of internalisation of meaning, by the introduction of epistemic modal operators into an object language. In this respect, to view meaning as the result of a linguistic competence makes epistemic logic nothing less than a logic of unified meaning and understanding

The logical anti-psychologism of Frege and Husserl

Frege and Husserl are both recognized for their significant contributions to the overthrowing of logical psychologism, at least in its 19th century forms. Between Frege's profound impact on modern logic that extended the influence of his anti-psychologism and Husserl's extensive attempts at the refutation of logical psychologism in the Prolegomena to Logical Investigations, these arguments are generally understood as successful. This paper attempts to account for the development of these two anti-psychologistic conceptions of logical objects and for some of the basic differences between them. It identifies some problems that are common to strongly anti-psychologistic conceptions of logic and compares the extent to which Frege's and Husserl's views are open to these problems. Accordingly, this paper is divided into two parts. Part I develops a conception of the problems of logical psychologism as they are distinctively understood by each philosopher, out of the explicit arguments and criticisms made against the view in the texts. This conception is in each case informed by the overall historical trajectories of each philosopher's philosophical development. Part II examines the two views in light of common problems of anti-psychologism

Predication and the Frege–Geach problem

Several philosophers have recently appealed to predication in developing their theories of cognitive representation and propositions. One central point of difference between them is whether they take predication to be forceful or neutral and whether they take the most basic cognitive representational act to be judging or entertaining. Both views are supported by powerful reasons and both face problems. Many think that predication must be forceful if it is to explain representation. However, the standard ways of implementing the idea give rise to the Frege-Geach problem. Others think that predication must be neutral, if we’re to avoid the Frege-Geach problem. However, it looks like nothing neutral can explain representation. In this paper I present a third view, one which respects the powerful reasons while avoiding the problems. On this view predication is forceful and can thus explain representation, but the idea is implemented in a novel way, avoiding the Frege-Geach problem. The key is to make sense of the notion of grasping a proposition as an objectual act where the object is a proposition

Refusing to Endorse. A must Explanation for Pejoratives.

In her analysis of pejoratives, Eva Picardi rejects a too sharp separation between descriptive and expressive content. I reconstruct some of her arguments, endorsing Eva’s criticism of Williamson’s analysis of Dummett and developing a suggestion by Manuel Garcia Carpintero on a speech act analysis of pejoratives. Eva’s main concern is accounting for our instinctive refusal to endorse an assertion containing pejoratives because it suggests a picture of reality we do not share. Her stance might be further developed claiming that uses of pejoratives not only suggest, but also promote a wrong picture of reality. Our refusal to endorse implies rejecting not only a wrong picture of reality but also a call for participation to what that picture promotes

Sense and Substance in Wittgenstein"s Tractatus

In the early pages of his Tractatus, Wittgenstein says that the substance of the world consists of unalterable, simple objects (Gegenstände) (2.021, 2.027). Substance is connected to the Sinn of a proposition in the following cryptic way: "If the world had no substance, then whether a proposition had sense [Sinn] would depend on whether another proposition was true.â€? (2.0211)â€? "In that case we could not sketch any picture of the world (true or false).â€? (2.0212) How can the sense of a proposition depend on the existence of simple, unalterable objects? No connection between Sinn and substance is evident on the basis of these short remarks. Furthermore, the remarks sound strange because elsewhere in the Tractatus Wittgenstein makes it clear that we can understand the sense of a proposition without knowing anything about how things actually stand in the world (see e.g. 4.024)

The Manifestation Challenge: The Debate between McDowell and Wright

In this paper, we will discuss what is called the “Manifestation Challenge” to semantic realism, which was originally developed by Michael Dummett and has been further refined by Crispin Wright. According to this challenge, semantic realism has to meet the requirement that knowledge of meaning must be publically manifested in linguistic behaviour. In this regard, we will introduce and evaluate John McDowell’s response to this anti-realistic challenge, which was put forward to show that the challenge cannot undermine realism. According to McDowell, knowledge of undecidable sentences’ truth-conditions can be properly manifested in our ordinary practice of asserting such sentences under certain circumstances, and any further requirement will be redundant. Wright’s further objection to McDowell’s response will be also discussed and it will be argued that this objection fails to raise any serious problem for McDowell’s response and that it is an implausible objection in general