Marco Ruffino: Chateaubriand on the Slingshot Arguments / Response: Did the Slingshots Hit the Mark? (original) (raw)

Chateaubriand on the slingshot arguments

Manuscrito, 2004

The purpose of this paper is to discuss Chateaubriand’s criticism of the so-called slingshot arguments, particularly of those versions proposed by Church (1956) and by Godel (1944). I concentrate on two critical points made by Chateaubriand, and argue that they are not decisive against these versions of the slingshot. I also discuss Chateaubriand’s hybrid theory of definite descriptions and argue that, despite its intrinsic interest, it cannot avoid the conclusion of the slingshot.

The True, the False, and the Slingshot Arguments

Why is This a Proof? Festschrift for Luiz Carlos Pereira. London: College Publications, 2015

When Frege reformulated his concept script in the early 1890's he postulated two logical objects as the referents of true and false sentences. He called these objects 'the True' and 'the False' and argued that all true sentences referred to the True and all false sentences referred to the False. Frege's arguments were not entirely convincing, and in the 20th century several logicians and philosophers offered formal arguments for Frege's conclusion, and these came to be known collectively as "the slingshot arguments". In this paper I present a simple refutation of three main arguments--given by Church, Davidson, and Gödel--based on a general principle about meaning and denotation.

Shallow Analysis and the Slingshot Argument

Journal of Philosophical Logic, 2010

According to the standard opinions in the literature, blocking the unacceptable consequences of the notorious slingshot argument requires imposing constraints on the metaphysics of facts or on theories of definite descriptions (or class abstracts). This paper argues that both of these well-known strategies to rebut the slingshot overshoot the mark. The slingshot, first and foremost, raises the question as to

The Slingshot Argument and the Correspondence Theory of Truth

The correspondence theory of truth holds that each true sentence corresponds to a discrete fact. Donald Davidson and others have argued (using an argument that has come to be known as the slingshot) that this theory is mistaken, since all true sentences correspond to the same "Great Fact." The argument is designed to show that by substituting logically equivalent sentences and coreferring terms for each other in the context of sentences of the form 'P corresponds to the fact that P' every true sentence can be shown to correspond to the same facts as every other true sentence. The claim is that all substitution of logically equivalent sentences and coreferring terms takes place salva veritate. I argue that the substitution of coreferring terms in this context need not preserve truth. The slingshot fails to refute the correspondence theory.