Ideal Epistemic Situations and the Accessibility of Realist Truth

forthcoming in Gillian Russell and Delia Graff Fara (eds.)

Synthese, 2020

In this essay, I pesent a new argument for the imposszbility of definmg truth by speafyzng the underlyzng structural property ali and only true proposttions have in common The set of consulerations I use to support this clazm take as thar inspiration Alston's recent argument that tt is trn possible to define truth epistemically-in terms of justification or warrant Accordmg to what Alston calls the "mtensional argument", epistenuc def =tons are inconststent with the Tschema or the principie that tt is true that p if, and only tf, p Smce the T-schema has great intuitive appeal, tias is a powerful zndictment of episterruc theones But the basic argument that Alston employs, and the constellatian of considerations whzch pros ecute that argument, work agamst a much broader range of views than he considers Whtle this implies that a traditional conceptual analysts of truth rnay be impossible, it opens the door to a piurahst approach to truth

Synthese, 2017

On his 60th birthday Pascal Engel was presented with a collection of more than fifty 1 1 papers authored by prestigious philosophers that reflected his long career of promotion 2 and development of analytic philosophy in and out of Europe. 1 This special issue brings 3 together a selection of those papers centred on the topics of truth and epistemic norms.

Teorema, 2003

It is widely assumed that any satisfactory account of truth has to accept all (or nearly all) instances of the following T-schema: it is true that p if and only if p. Hence any argument showing the incompatibility of a given account of truth with this schema would be damaging for the account in question. Incompatibility arguments are sometimes directed against the epistemic conception of truth, for which truth is some sort of idealized rational justifiability or warranted assertibility. An intriguing argument of that kind has been recently put forward by William Alston. The aim of the paper is to discuss and undermine Alston’s argument.

Synthese 117: 133-72, 1999

The paper offers a new analysis of the difficulties involved in the construction of a general and substantive correspondence theory of truth and delineates a solution to these difficulties in the form of a new methodology. The central argument is inspired by Kant, and the proposed methodology is explained and justified both in general philosophical terms and by reference to a particular variant of Tarski's theory. The paper begins with general considerations on truth and correspondence and concludes with a brief outlook on the "family" of theories of truth generated by the new methodology.

Philosophy Compass, 2022

Primitivists about truth maintain that truth cannot be analysed in more fundamental terms. Defences of primitivism date back to the early years of analytic philosophy, being offered by G.E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, and Gottlob Frege. In more recent years, a number of contemporary philosophers—including Donald Davidson, Ernest Sosa, Trenton Merricks, Douglas Patterson, and Jamin Asay—have followed suit, defending their own versions of primitivism. I'll begin by offering a brief history of primitivism, situating each of these views within the landscape of primitivist truth theories and detailing some of their core motivations and apparent shortcomings. To close the discussion, I'll offer a diagnosis of the prospects of primitivism, focusing on the mystery challenge, which has loomed large throughout the history of primitivist truth theories, and the methodology that should be used in evaluating primitivist (and other) truth theories going forward.

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1981

Epistemological Foundationalism is hardly a tenable candidate for the metaphysics of empirical knowledge. Its main alternative is what may be called the Coherence theory of epistemic justification-if one is able to make sense of a theory deserving such a name-and there are reasons for pessimism when one looks at the earlier attempts to clarify, formulate, and apply the alternatives to Foundationalism. However, I take it that my task here is merely to indicate where exactly the primary problem marring Nonfoundationalism might lie. I shall suggest that outside Foundationalism it is difficult, but not impossible, to make sense of the idea that there is any empirical evidence available to a rational epistemic subject and I shall illustrate the problem by means of an example. Nothing else will be attempted. We shall study an epistemological theory which is closely associated with the Coherence theory of truth in its classic idealistic form. The main issues to be dealt with can be illuminated if we focus on this theory: it dismisses exactly what is important in any explication of the necessary conditions of the existence of knowledge. What I mean is that whatever coherence methods we might develop and use in order to be able to make decisions to the effect that one's (empirical) beliefs are justified in certain circumstances or even that these beliefs are true, they must be grounded on some evidence; they must not be outrightly fictional. That there is suitable evidence available for epistemological purposes in the first place is possibly never proved to be true but merely stipulated to be true, presupposed as a methodological necessity or even dismissed as a possible problem (cf. [4], pp. 38-9). But certainly, coherence methods work only if they are applied to some sets of propositions which are iniriullypluusible as to their truth. It is easy to see that one cannot start one's truth-seeking from some pre-established truths, but neither can one start from merely fictional propositions; one therefore starts from potential truths ([7], pp. 50, 54; also [2]). One must be able to make important preliminary decisions here, but on what basis?

forthcoming in European Journal of Philosophy

Note: an early version of this paper circulated under the title 'Truthiness'. Please cite this version instead.

The Canadian Journal of Philosophy 42, 2012

According to deflationism, truth has no substantial nature. In contrast, Crispin Wright and Michael Lynch have argued that truth has a normative nature, and, moreover, if it is has a normative nature, it must have a further underlying substantial nature capable of explaining this normative nature. In this paper, I argue for the plausibility of an alternative: that truth has a normative nature without having any further underlying substantial nature. Thus, while I contend for a “maniacal” pluralism about the underlying truth-constituting properties of truth- bearers that is consonant with deflationism, I suggest truth may have a normative nature nonetheless. Furthermore, in arguing for the plausibility of this, the dual aspects theory of truth, I simultaneously advocate for cognitive particularism, the view that the fundamental explanations for cognitive norms are particular to the content-types of belief rather than stemming, more generally, from the nature of belief and truth alone.