The Synthetic Concept of Truth and its Descendants

The concept of truth has many aims but only one source. The article describes the primary concept of truth, here called the synthetic concept of truth, according to which truth is the objective result of the synthesis of us and nature in the process of rational cognition. It is shown how various aspects of the concept of truth -- logical, scientific, and mathematical aspect -- arise from the synthetic concept of truth. Also, it is shown how the paradoxes of truth arise

Paradoxes and the foundations of semantics and metaphysics

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (p. 175-180).Numerous philosophical problems, otherwise quite different in character, are of the following form. Certain claims which seem not only obviously true, but even constitutive of the meanings of the expressions employed, can be shown to lead to absurdity when taken together (perhaps in conjunction with contingent facts about the world). All such problems can justly be called paradoxes. The paradoxes I examine are the liar paradox, the sorites paradox, and the personal identity paradox posed by the fission problem. I argue that, in all of the cases examined, the claims that jointly lead to absurdity really are constitutive of the meanings of the expressions employed, in the following ways. First, semantic competence with the expressions involves being disposed to accept these claims. Second, the claims are reference-determining, in that the semantic values of the expressions employed are constrained by the condition that these claims should come out true, or as nearly true as possible. If a claim or principle is constitutive of meaning in both of these ways, I call it meaning-constitutive. When the meaning-constitutive principles for some expressions of a language are inconsistent, I call the language inconsistent. This is a stipulative definition; but it accords well with what other theorists who have talked about languages being inconsistent, for example Alfred Tarski, have had in mind. In chapters one and two, I argue that our language is inconsistent. In chapter three, I relate my theses to Frank Jackson's and David Lewis's views on how reference is determined. Another problem posed by the liar paradox concerns important theses in the philosophy of language. The liar reasoning shows that under certain conditions, a natural language cannot contain a predicate satisfying the T-schema. But many theses in the philosophy of language presuppose that truth satisfies the T-schema. I resolve this conflict in a Tarskian way: by saying that truth then is expressed only in an essentially richer metalanguage. However, I argue that taking this route means having to embrace the existence of absolutely inexpressible properties - and even to embrace the conclusion that some properties of which we appear to have concepts are absolutely inexpressible. All this is dealt with in chapter four. In the fifth chapter I show that my arguments of the previous chapters have (dis)solved the liar paradox. And finally, in the sixth chapter, I discuss the philosophical significance of truth and logic, and argue that these questions are significant only if understood in a new way. In this last chapter I also discuss the implications of the liar paradox for metaphysics; more specifically, its implications for the issue of how metaphysical claims are justified.by Matti Eklund.Ph.D

Some Varieties of Superparadox. The implications of dynamic contradiction, the characteristic form of breakdown of breakdown of sense to which self-reference is prone

The Problem of the Paradoxes came to the fore in philosophy and mathematics with the discovery of Russell's Paradox in 1901. It is the "forgotten" intellectual-scientific problem of the Twentieth Century, because for more than sixty years a pretence was maintained, by a consensus of logicians, that the problem had been "solved"

Metaontological Studies relating to the Problem of Universals

My dissertation deals with metaontology or metametaphysics. This is the subdiscipline of philosophy that is concerned with the investigation of metaphysical concepts, statements, theories and problems on the metalevel. It analyses the meaning of metaphysical statements and theories and discusses how they are to be justified. The name "metaontology" is recently coined, but the task of metaontology is the same as Immanuel Kant already dealt with in his Critique of Pure Reason. As methods I use both historical research and logical (or rather semantical) analysis. In order to understand clearly what metaphysical terms or theories mean or should mean we must both look at how they have been characterized in the course of the history of philosophy and then analyse the meanings that have historically been given to them with the methods of modern formal semantics. Metaontological research would be worthless if it could not in the end be applied to solving some substantive ontological questions. In the end of my dissertation, therefore, I give arguments for a solution to the substantively ontological problem of universals, a form of realism about universals called promiscuous realism. To prepare the way for that argument, I argue that the metaontological considerations most relevant to the problem of universals are considerations concerning ontological commitment, as the American philosophers Quine and van Inwagen have argued, not those concerning truthmakers as such philosophers as the Australian realist D. M. Armstrong have argued or those concerning verification conditions as such philosophers as Michael Dummett have argued. To justify this conclusion, I go first through well-known objections to verificationism, and show that they apply also to current verificationist theories such as Dummett's theory and Field's deflationist theory of truth. In the process I also respond to opponents of metaphysics who try to show with the aid of verificationism or structuralism that metaphysical questions would be meaningless or illegitimate in some other way. Having justified the central role of ontological commitment, I try to develop a detailed theory of it. The core of my work is a rigorous formal development of a theory of ontological commitment. I construct it by combining Alonzo Church's theory of ontological commitment with Tarski's theory of truth.Väitöskirjani käsittelee metaontologiaa eli metametafysiikkaa. Tämä on se metafilosofian osa-alue, joka tutkii metafyysisten väitteiden ja termien merkitystä ja sitä, miten metafyysiset väitteet ja teoriat voitaisiin oikeuttaa. Metafysiikka tai ontologia on taas tiede, joka tutkii olevaa yleensä tai kaikkeutta kokonaisuutena. Menetelminä käytän sekä historiallista tutkimusta että loogista (tai pikemminkin semanttista) analyysiä. On olemassa kolme pääasiallista teoriaa siitä, mikä on metaontologian keskeisin käsite. Sellaiset filosofit kuin australialainen Armstrong ovat väittäneet, että se on totuustekijöiden (truthmakers) käsite. Sellaiset anti-realistiset filosofit kuin englantilainen filosofi Michael Dummett ovat taas väittäneet että se on todennettavuusehtojen (verification conditions) käsite. Argumentoin näitä kahta käsitystä vastaan ja kolmannen puolesta, jonka mukaan keskeisin käsite on ontologisten sitoumusten käsite, kuten amerikkalainen filosofi Quine on väittänyt. Argumentoin, että Quinen ontologisten sitoumusten teoria voidaan erottaa hänen muista ontologisista näkemyksistään, kuten hänen semanttisesta holismistaan, ontologisesta relativismistaan tai strukturalismistaan, mitkä ovat mielestäni virheellisiä. Väitöskirjani ydin on täsmällinen teoria ontologisista sitoumuksista, jonka rakennan yhdistämällä Alonzo Churchin teoriaa ontologisista sitoumuksista Alfred Tarskin totuusteoriaan. Metaontologinen tutkimus olisi arvotonta, ellei sitä voisi lopulta käyttää substantiivisten ontologisten kysymysten ratkaisemiseen. Käsittelen siksi väitöskirjani loppupuolella yhtä perinteistä ontologian ongelmaa, universaalien ongelmaa. Jo Aristoteles määritteli teoksessaan Tulkinnasta universaalien olevan olioita, jotka (Lauri Carlsonin käännöksen mukaan) luonnostaan predikoidaan (sanotaan) monesta. Universaaliongelma koskee sitä, ovatko tällaiset universaalit vain kielellisiä ilmauksia, kuten yleisnimet, verbit ja adjektiivit, tai ihmismielestä riippuvia olioita, kuten yleiskäsitteet, vai voidaanko myös sanoa, että maailmassa itsessään olevia olioita voidaan predikoida jostakin. Realistin mukaan vastaus on myöntävä. Esitän väitöskirjan lopussa alustavan argumentin universaaleja koskevan realismin puolesta

The relation between world and language in the philosophy of Donald Davidson : the critique of conceptual relativism

The arguments against the dualism of scheme and content are supplemented in this thesis with a comparison of Davidson and Hans-Georg Gadamer, a Continental philosopher. I compare claims made by both thinkers regarding understanding, interpretation and truth. I show that not only are there many undeniable convergences between them, but also that Gadamer's analysis of hermeneutics can be used to complement and illuminate some of Davidson's concerns. The conclusion reached in this thesis is that the dualism of scheme and content is partly the result of attempts by some philosophers to define truth in terms of something more fundamental, viz., reference. Drawing on some of Davidson's later work, supplemented with arguments by Arthur Fine's, Natural Ontological Attitude, I show that truth is the most fundamental concept we have and escapes all attempts at general or absolute characterization. In consequence, I maintain: i) that the relation between world and language is unmediated; and ii) that Davidson's account of truth transcends the coherence/correspondence debate and the realism/anti-realism debate

Theories of Truth With Bibliographical Review

The concept of truth is a fundamental philosophical inquiry that transcends time and cultural boundaries. This paper is aimed at illuminating the nature of truth and its intricate connection to the fabric of reality through an extensive bibliography. The reader will have at his disposal the most important references on the subject with a short abstract. The references are under the various theories of truth, even knowing the difficulties in classifying the authors under a label as those proposed by the various theories of truth such as the correspondence, pragmatic, deflationary, constructivist, ontological, and semantic

Propositions and Paradoxes.

Propositions are more than the bearers of truth and the meanings of sentences: they are also the objects of an array of attitudes including belief, desire, hope, and fear. This variety of roles leads to a variety of paradoxes, most of which have been sorely neglected. Arguing that existing work on these paradoxes is either too heavy-handed or too specific in its focus to be fully satisfactory, I develop a basic intensional logic and pursue and compare three strategies for addressing the paradoxes, one employing truth-value gaps, one restricting propositional quantification, and one restricting our ability to have attitudes like belief and desire. This results in four distinct resolutions of the paradoxes, all but one of which are novel and all of which receive novel and general implementations. While resolving the paradoxes is of course the ultimate goal, I do not here argue that any one of the resolutions is superior. These paradoxes have been so little studied that my primary goal is only to identify the most fundamental costs and benefits of the various approaches one can take to addressing them. Each resolution I develop has significant drawbacks, which I argue highlight tensions between the different roles propositions play. Past researchers have skirted these tensions, and the issues raised by these paradoxes more generally, by focusing on non-propositional paradoxes, such as the most familiar forms of the Liar paradox. At the least, then, I hope this dissertation establishes that the propositional paradoxes deserve attention not only because of their consequences for intensional logic, but also because of their consequences for our understanding of content, truth, quantification, and a host of mental attitudes.Ph.D.PhilosophyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/89611/1/dtuck_1.pd

Leibniz and the rationality of the infinite

Part 1 Historically the term 'infinite' has had two apparently contrary meanings. On the one hand, it was taken by metaphysicians like Plotinus to mean that which " ... has never known measure and stands outside number, and so is under no limit either in regard to anything external or internal ... " (Branford 1949, V.5.11). 'Infinite' in this sense means 'irrevocably complete'. On the other hand, Aristotle defined it in this way: "A quantity is infinite if it is such that we can always take a part outside what has already been taken." (Hardie and Gaye 1941, 207a, 5-10) 'Infinite', in this second sense means, 'irrevocably incomplete'. Leibniz is someone who uses both these meanings. In particular, he identifies the irrevocably complete with God and the irrevocably incomplete with the world (as we know it). Given, firstly, that what is irrevocably complete includes everything and, secondly, that it excludes anything incomplete, the following conclusion can be drawn: Leibniz's philosophy of the infinite makes of the-world-as-we-know-it something that is logically dependent on God, but also something that exists in contradiction to 'him'. Leibniz cannot escape a kind of contradiction in what he says about God and the world but this is not a straightforward case of self-refutation. The reason turns on the consideration that to divorce the concept of the irrevocably complete from its object is to deprive this concept of its sense, specifically of its sense of completeness. For if the two are distinct, then there is something beyond the irrevocably complete, namely, how this is independently of its concept. It follows that to deny the irrevocably complete is, in the same breath, to affirm that very thing. Yet if we cannot quite deny the irrevocable complete, neither can we as human beings quite affirm it either-for the human mind is, we do not doubt, a limited one. Thus the irrevocably complete can neither be affirmed nor denied without contradiction. There is a strong resemblance between this paradox and the paradox of the liar: in both cases there is a thesis that says of itself that it is untrue and, in both cases, thesis and antithesis tum out to be equivalent. Part 2 Kant offers some powerful reasons to think that the paradox discussed in Part 1 involves no real contradiction. The critical philosophy suggests that the apparent contradiction is real, only if, per impossibile, we have some way to positively employ the concept of the world as it is independently of our conceptions of it. Kant's view of the infinite shares with Leibniz's the vice (if it is one) that it is paradoxical: both philosophers make use of a concept that cannot, strictly speaking, be possessed by the human mind. However each view has the significant virtue that it shows the difference between the irrevocably complete and the irrevocably incomplete to be not simply a logical difference. My overall conclusion is based on a synthesis of the Leibnizian and the Kantian philosophies of the infinite. According to Leibniz, neither the irrevocably complete, nor the irrevocably incomplete, can be eliminated from philosophy. According to Kant, infinity is-from a human perspective at least-something prior to conception; putting Leibniz and Kant together, I conclude that these modes of infinity combine to produce finitude, that they are the joint conditions under which difference, and therefore finitude, is possible. In particular, I argue that the irrevocably complete is the infinity of fullness, and that the irrevocably incomplete is the infinity of emptiness, and that logic is blind to any difference there might be between these, since both are, by definition, undifferentiated. Given that ethics, as well as logic, is dependent on finitude, I conclude, finally, that the perennial ambition to eliminate either the irrevocably complete or the irrevocably incomplete from philosophy is, not merely unrealisable, but potentially dangerous

What is truth?

I defend the correspondence theory of truth, according to which a statement’s truth consists in a relation of correspondence with extralinguistic fact. There are well-known objections to this view, which I consider and rebut, and also important rival accounts, principal among which are so-called deflationist theories and epistemic theories. Epistemic theories relate the concept of truth to our state of knowledge, but fail, I argue, to respect the crucial distinction between a criterion of truth and the meaning of truth: the view that one cannot do semantics, or metaphysics, without addressing epistemic issues is rejected by this work. Against epistemic theories, I illustrate how truth is independent of epistemic considerations. Deflationism is the more popular of the rival accounts and has gained considerable momentum over the past two decades. It is therefore dealt with in greater detail by this work. Deflationist theories exploit the paradigmatic ‘“Snow is white” is true iff snow is white’ biconditional to argue for an insubstantialist account, according to which truth is conservative with respect to non-semantical facts. On this view, truth’s raison d’être is merely to perform the useful expressive function of generalising over possibly infinite sets of assertions. Against deflationist theories, I claim that the work done by Jeffrey Ketland and Stewart Shapiro conclusively demonstrates how truth is informationally additive over non-semantic facts, while deflationism itself is also an excessively impoverishing theory, inadequate to the tasks it purports to accomplish. This work also defends the thesis that Alfred Tarski’s well-known theory of truth is an authentic correspondence theory. To say this is to say that the clauses of a Tarskian truth-definition can be interpreted in terms of a relation of correspondence that holds between true sentences and the states of affairs they describe. I provide a precise account of what the correspondence in question consists in, claiming that true sentences are homomorphic images of facts, i.e. a true sentence represents, in a form-preserving manner, the truth-making facts in it. This gives precise expression to Wittgenstein’s thesis that true sentences picture the world