Some Problems Regarding the Disquotational Perspective on Truth (original) (raw)
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An Observation about Truth (with Implications for Meaning and Language) [PhD dissertation]
This dissertation is a philosophical analysis of the concept of truth. It is a development and defense of the “stratified” or “language-level” conception of truth, first advanced in Alfred Tarski’s 1933 monograph The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages. Although Tarski’s paper had seminal influence both in philosophy and in more technical disciplines, its central philosophical claim has not been generally accepted. This work has two central goals: (a) to give a detailed and analytic presentation of Tarski’s theory and the problems it faces; (b) to offer a solution to these problems and assess the philosophical significance of this solution. The essay is divided in two parts. Part One contains a detailed and analytic presentation and interpretation of the stratified conception of truth. The analysis contains several steps: (a) Crucial basic assumptions, such as the limitation to formalized languages and the requirement of explicit definitions, are stated explicitly, motivated, and their philosophical significance discussed. (b) The main negative result of the stratified conception, the impossibility of semantic closure and of a universal language, is given in detail and interpreted. (c) Tarski’s criterion for adequate truth definitions, known as Convention T, is stated and motivated. (d) The deep structure of Tarski-style truth definitions and the necessary conditions for their availability are analyzed. In particular, the philosophical significance of Tarski’s notion of “essential richness” is discussed. (e) Finally, several problems are raised for the stratified conception, chief among them the unity objection, according to which the stratified conception is not a viable analysis of the concept of truth, since (by (a) above) an analysis should take the form of a definition, and on the stratified conception different languages have different definitions. There is therefore no one analysis of the concept. Part Two is a development of answers to the problems raised at the end of Part One. The crux of the answer to the unity objection is that Convention T, the adequacy criterion, connects the many definitions of truth into a single concept. However, in order to fulfill that role Convention T must apply universally, and a universal language was shown to be impossible ((c) above). The task of Part Two is therefore to develop a mode of expression that allows the universal applicability of Convention T without commitment to a universal metalanguage. The procedure is as follows. (a) Convention T is formalized in order to isolate the place in which universal applicability is required. (b) A new expressive resource of “abstract generality” is developed. To this purpose a digression into the semantics of natural language indexicals is undertaken. David Kaplan’s thesis of the direct reference of indexicals is analyzed and a new formal system is proposed that embodies it. It is shown that this formal system expresses abstract generality. (c) The notion of abstract generality is adapted to languages without indexicals and it isviii shown that Convention T can be expressed without assuming a universal language. (d) A reconstrual of the task of concept analysis is proposed, which is a generalization of the answer to the unity objection. It is often complained against Tarski’s stratified conception of truth that it is of limited philosophical significance. In this work I show that, on the contrary, the problems it faces and the solutions that can be advanced to answer these problems have substantive philosophical consequences. The notion of abstract generality gives rise to a distinction between two fundamentally different modes of discourse: a universal but merely abstract methodological discourse on the one hand, and a concrete but inevitably restricted theoretical discourse on the other. This distinction has many important implications for our understanding of the concepts of truth, meaning and language.
On some aspects of the concept of truth
1975
Two aspects of truth constitute the subject of investigation in this thesis. These two aspects arise in the dependence of truth on language and fact. A statement is true or false, as the case may be, jointly in virtue of what it means and of how things are. This double dependence . of truth on meaning and reality establishes prima facie interconnections between these notions, which I am here concerned to analyse. Consideration of these interconnections with respect to individual sentences suggests that truth is dependent on meaning. After all, we cannot begin to assess a statement as to its veracity unless we first understand it, that is to say, grasp its meaning. This claim is unexceptionable, but only from a vantage point which precludes a general understanding of the concepts involved. It quite leaves out of account the evident consideration that it is only in the context of a language that a collocation of symbols or sounds is endowed with sense- While it must be that, to dete...
Semantic Conception of Truth. What It Is and What It Is Not
Alfred Tarski’s semantic conception of truth is arguably the most influential – certainly, most discussed - modern conception of truth. It has provoked many different interpretations and reactions, some thinkers celebrating it for successfully explicating the notion of truth, whereas others have argued that it is no good as a philosophical account of truth. The aim of this work is to offer a systematic and critical investigation of its nature and significance, based on the thorough explanation of its conceptual, technical as well as historical underpinnings. The methodological strategy adopted in the thesis reflects the author’s belief that in order to evaluate the import of Tarski’s conception we need to understand what logical, mathematical and philosophical aspects it has, what role they play in his project of theoretical semantics, which of them hang in together, and which should be kept separate. Chapter 2 therefore starts with a detailed exposition of the conceptual and historical background of Tarski’s semantic conception of truth and his method of truth definition for formalized languages, situating it within his project of theoretical semantics, and Chapter 3 explains the formal machinery of Tarski’s truth definitions for increasingly more complex languages. Chapters 4 - 7 form the core of the thesis, all being concerned with the problem of significance of Tarski’s conception. Chapter 4 explains its logico-mathematical import, connecting it to the related works of Gödel and Carnap. Having explained the seminal ideas of the model-theoretic approach to semantics, Chapter 5 tackles the question to what extent Tarski’s ‘The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages’ (and related articles from the 1930s) anticipates this approach, and what elements might be missing from it. Chapter 6 then deals with the vexed question of its philosophical import and value as a theory of truth, reviewing a number of objections and arguments that purport to show that the method fails as an explanation (explication) of the ordinary notion of truth, and, in particular, that it is a confusion to think that Tarski’s truth definitions have semantic import. Finally, Chapter 7 is devoted to the question whether Tarski’s theory of truth is a robust or rather a deflationary theory of truth. On the basis of a careful analysis, the thesis aims to substantiate the following view. [A] Tarski’s theory with its associated method of truth definition was primarily designed to serve logico-mathematical purposes. [B] It can be regarded a deflationary theory of a sort, since it completely abstracts from meta- semantical issues concerning the metaphysical or epistemological basis or status of semantic properties. Indeed, [C] this can be interpreted as its laudable feature, since by separating formal (or logico-mathematical) from meta-semantical (or foundational) aspects it usefully divides the theoretical labour to be done in the area of meaning and semantic properties in general. [D] In spite of the fact that Tarski’s conception of truth has this deflationary flavour, the formal structure of its method of truth-definition is quite neutral in that it can be interpreted and employed in several different ways, some of them deflationary, others more robust.
Inquiry, 2018
Much philosophical attention has been devoted to the truth predicates of natural language and their logic. However, lexical truth predicates are neither necessary nor sufficient for a truthattribution to occur, which warrants closer attention to the grammar of truth attribution. A unified analysis of five constructions is offered here, in two of which the lexical truth predicate occurs (It's true that John left and That John left is true), while in the three remaining, it does not (John left; It seems that John left; and It's that John left). This analysis is philosophically significant for four reasons. First, it explains why speakers of natural language find standard instances of Tarski-inspired equivalences (e.g., That John left is true iff John left) intuitively compelling. Second, it derives the widespread 'deflationist' intuition that truth has no substantive content. Third, insofar as the deflationist sees insights on truth as flowing from understanding our practice of truth attribution, it furthers the deflationist agenda through a new analysis of such attributions. Finally, it advances the philosophical project of the 'naturalization' of truth by reducing our understanding of truth to our competence in the grammar of truth, as an aspect of our biological endowment.
Defining "False": Towards a Unified Theory of Truth
Tarski’s semantic conception of truth was first stated by Aristotle: ‘To say of what is that it is not, or of what is that it is not, is false, while to say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true’ (Metaphysics, 1011b 26-28). Tarski takes his T-biconditional from this. However, whereas Aristotle defines ‘true’ before ‘false’ Tarski defines only ‘true’. I reformulate the definitions of ‘false’ and ‘true’ of various contemporary theories of truth. In the reformulations ‘false’ is defined first. I hope to uncover some structural features that are common to all theories of truth and conjecture how these can be weaved into a fabric from which we can ultimately tailor a unified theory of truth. My main aim is to arrive historically, with my reversal, at the Tarskian biconditional F: “‘p’ is false if and only if not-p,” which will replace Tarski’s biconditional T: “‘p’ is true if and only if p.” Now, ‘true’ will be defined as: “‘p’ is true if and only if not-not-p.” But by double negation this is equivalent to Tarski’s original convention T. So what is the big deal? If truth is simply a logical concept then the truth functional equivalence of double negation with affirmation is sufficient to establish the identity of Tarski’s biconditional T with my reformulated Tarskian biconditional T. However, if truth is a concept involving some extra-logical, linguistic, ontological, metaphysical, epistemological, or psychological dimensions, then there is a significant difference between the definition of ‘true’ that involves an affirmation and the one that involves a double negation. Furthermore, some intuitionist systems of logic reject double negation as a rule. Hence, defining ‘true’ in terms of ‘false’ will not even be logically equivalent to defining ‘false’ in terms of ‘true’. I will demonstrate that with this reversal of definitions we will get a better rendition of the liar’s paradox, which usually begins with a statement like ‘This sentence is not true.’ I will begin with falsehood and then the paradox is unveiled. The result is that whereas Tarski’s actual version of the liar’s antinomy appeals to the rule of double negation, my version does not. Nonetheless Tarski’s original proof can also be revised to avoid use of the rule of double negation. I also consider the possibility of the indefinability of truth, as proposed by Donald Davidson, and defend robust as well as deflationary theories in their search for truth and reject indefinability. In doing so, I take on an exercise in philosophical methodology of Plato and its influence on contemporary analytic philosophy.
The Cambridge Handbook of the Philosophy of Language., 2021
Published in: Piotr Stalmaszczyk (ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge University Press, 217–232. The concept of truth and competing philosophical theories on what truth amounts to have an important place in contemporary philosophy. The aim of this chapter is to give a synopsis of different theories of truth and the particular philosophical issues related to the concept of truth. The literature on this topic is vast, and we must necessarily be rather selective and very brief about complex questions of interpretation of various philosophers. The focus of the chapter is mainly on selected systematic issues and the most influential and well-established philosophical theories and key concepts.
Book Review: Marian David. Correspondence and Disquotation: An Essay on the Nature of Truth
Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 1998
The material of this book is divided into six chapters and a short appendix. Chapter 1 is an introduction. It consists of preliminary discussions of substantive and deflationary accounts of truth, correspondence and disquotation conceptions of truth, truth theory and its structure, and the bearers of truth. The second chapter is a survey of the main issues and tasks of a correspondence conception of truth. The third is a brief discussion of the main motivations for deflationism. The fourth is a detailed analysis of the thesis of disquotationalism and its appropriate formulation. The fifth, which is the longest chapter (about 80 pages), is an elaborate critique of disquotationalism. Chapter 6 is a two-page review of the book's central conclusion: disquotationalism fails because it has too many absurd consequences, and a correspondence conception of truth seems to be the only feasible alternative for someone who wishes to hold on to the basic intuition that 'Snow is white is true' if and only if snow is white. The appendix shows that the liar paradox is formalizable in a language whose truth predicate is defined disquotationally, and hence the liar and liar-like phenomena present similar challenges to both conceptions of truth, correspondence and disquotation. David's book is really a critical essay on disquotationalism. It is very likely the most elaborate study of disquotationalism available in the philosophical literature to date. Out of the 188 pages that make the philosophical text of the book, 155 pages are almost entirely devoted to discussing disquotationalism. The one chapter allocated to the exposition of correspondence accounts of truth is included mostly for the sake of motivating disquotationalism. The latter, being a radically deflationist account of truth, is best seen when contrasted with the theory that it seeks to deflate. 2 Theories of truth are of two kinds, substantive and deflationary. Proponents of the first kind believe that the concept of truth has a deep nature that requires an ideologically sophisticated and ontologically rich philosophical account. Advocates of the
A Disquotational Truth Theory as Strong as Z2- [Journal of Philosophical Logic]
2015
T-biconditionals have often been regarded as insufficient as axioms for truth. This verdict is based on Tarski’s observation that the typed T-sentences suffer from deductive weakness. As indicated by McGee, the situation might change radically if we consider type-free disquotational theories of truth. However, finding a well-motivated set of untyped T-biconditionals that is consistent and recursively enumerable has proven to be very difficult. Moreover, some authors (e.g. Glanzberg) have argued that any solution to the semantic paradoxes necessarily involves ‘inflationary’ means, thus spelling doom to deflationist and minimalist theories of truth in particular. The situation is indeed worrisome as formal theories of minimalist truth are (almost) missing so far. This makes it very hard to properly evaluate the tenets of minimalism. In this article, we will show how to find legitimate instances of the T-schema just by relying on syntactic features of the sentences of our language—in particular, we will explore Quine’s idea of stratification. Based on that, we will introduce some disquotational truth theories that are deductively very strong.