Radical Knowledge Minimalism

Synthese, 2018

—ABSTRACT— Since the publication of Truth, Paul Horwich's 'Minimalism' has become the paradigm of what goes under the label 'the deflationary conception of truth'. Despite the many theoretical virtues of Horwich's minimalism, it is usually contended that it cannot fully account for the normative role that truth plays in enquiry. As I see it, this concern amounts to several challenges. One such challenge—call it the axiological challenge—is about whether deflationists have the theoretical resources to explain the value of truth. Some philosophers (e.g. Michael Lynch and Bernard Williams) have argued that they do not. The thought is that by being valuable in the way it is, truth plays a non-trivial explanatory role with respect to core phenomena of enquiry. In order to account for this aspect of truth, the challenge goes, we need to inflate truth's nature to an extent incompatible with core tenets of the minimalist conception. In this paper, I first provide some clarifications of what we mean exactly when we say that truth is valuable. By borrowing important distinction from the current debate in axiology, I elaborate a framework within which to conduct investigations into the value of truth. With reference to Horwich's discussion of the issue, I then discuss the link between questions concerning the explanatory role of truth and the issue of its metaphysical inflation. I conclude by briefly exploring a few strategies on behalf of minimalists to address the axiological challenge. 2

Logos Architekton. Journal of Logic and Philosophy of Science, 2011

The investigation from this paper has several purposes. First, I will try to highlight the specific of minimalist approach of truth as opposed to the specific of classical or metaphysical approach of truth. Secondly, I will try to present synthetic the main minimalist theories of truth. Thirdly, I will systematize the main virtues of minimalist theories of truth. I will argue that the main virtues of this approach are: understanding the truth as transparent property, removing unwanted metaphysical implications and eliminating unnecessary theorizing. Finally, I will indicate some difficulties of the minimalist approach of truth.

The Philosophical Quarterly, 2004

Minimalists generally see themselves as engaged in a descriptive project. They maintain that they can explain everything we want to say about truth without appealing to anything other than the T-schema, i.e., the idea that the proposition that p is true iff p. I argue that despite recent claims to the contrary, minimalists cannot explain one important belief many people have about truth, namely, that truth is good. If that is so, then minimalism, and possibly deflationism as a whole, must be rejected or recast as a profoundly revisionary project.

This book argues that perception, intelligence and science are all relative to the species as a frame of reference (the kind of nervous system made possible by the genetic endowment of the species -- evolutionary relativism). The rationality of science is a social property and should be understood also in terms of biological performance. Science is seen as a form of play, extending some ideas by Lorenz. The views I develop lead to a critique of several philosophers, from Quine to Lakatos, and of theories concerning conceptual schemes and the limits of knowledge.

Edward Craig's approach in Knowledge and the State of Nature has much more explanatory power than has been so far realised and a suitably modified Craigian project can satisfactorily address a number of otherwise puzzling issues regarding the value of knowledge. In particular, I argue that a Craig-inspired novel account of knowledge that intimately relates knowledge to testimony can explain why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief and why it has a distinctive value. Significantly, the account avoids a recently advanced revisionism with regard to the focus of epistemological inquiry.

Avebury Publishing Co., England, and Hackett Publishing Co., U.S., 1981

This book argues that perception, intelligence and science are all relative to the species as a frame of reference (the kind of nervous system made possible by the genetic endowment of the species -- evolutionary relativism). The rationality of science is a social property and should be understood also in terms of biological performance. Science is seen as a form of play, extending some ideas by Lorenz. The views I develop lead to a critique of several philosophers, from Quine to Lakatos, and of theories concerning conceptual schemes and the limits of knowledge.

2007

The paper gives an a priori argument for the view that knowledge is unanalysable. To establish this conclusion I argue that warrant, i.e. the property, whatever precisely it is, which makes the difference between knowledge and mere true belief, entails both truth and belief and thus does not exist as a property distinct from knowledge: all and only knowledge can turn a true belief into knowledge. The paper concludes that the project of trying to find a condition distinct from knowledge that is necessary and together with truth and belief sufficient for knowledge must be doomed to failure.

Dialectica, 2019

I argue against Greco's account of the value of knowledge, according to which knowledge is distinctively valuable vis-à-vis that which falls short of knowledge in virtue of its status as an achievement and achievements being finally valuable. Instead, I make the case that virtuous belief is also an achievement. I argue that the nature of knowledge is such that knowledge is finally valuable in a way that virtuous belief is not, precisely because knowledge is not simply a success from ability. The value of knowledge lies in the positive responsiveness of the world to an agent's epistemic virtuousness.

The inclusion of the truth condition in the definition of knowledge has been responsible for a number of paradoxes. Some epistemologists claim that in the case of knowledge justification entails truth or that belief implies truth as there is a causal relation between truth and belief. Truth hence becomes redundant in the definition of knowledge. I do not drop the truth condition for this reason because this denies the autonomy of the distinct conditions for knowledge. I argue that truth and knowledge are inseparable. However. “that p is true” should not be a necessary condition in the definiens of the definiendum “S knows that p is true.” Whereas the quest of truth is a necessary condition for knowledge. While I drop the truth condition from the definition of knowing that p is true, I do not drop the condition that p is false from the definition of knowing that p is false. This means that though I may know something that is not true, I cannot know something that is false. This is a compromised revision of the long standing intuition of epistemologists that if I know something then I cannot be wrong. Linda Zagzebski defines knowledge as: “Knowledge is a state of true belief arising out of acts of intellectual virtue.” (Zagzebski, 1996, 271). She has hence dropped the truth condition. Intellectual virtues direct us towards truth but they do not guarantee truth. In the ideal case whatever I know will be true, but in most cases it will be true to the best of my knowledge. It is also common sense to believe that I am more likely to know something that is false than to know something that is true.