Sliding from possible worlds semantics to truth

Relativism and strong forms of contextualism assert, from what I gather, that the content of a proposition is not true or false simpliciter, but rather true or false at a time/world/context. A motivation for accepting semantic relativism is the success of possible worlds semantics. It becomes easy to make the move from thinking about possible [...]

Rorty and Davidson

I’ve never been swayed by Rorty’s philosophy; some of it is interesting and much of it is fluff. Still, one ought to read the Mirror of Nature at some point in their philosophical adventure. His partner in discussion is the admirable Donald Davidson, whose Actions, Reasons and Causes is one of the most influential papers [...]

Hilary Putnam’s anti-Skepticism Argument

1) If I am a brain in a vat, I express a falsehood in uttering the sentence “I am a brain in a vat.” 2) If I am not a brain in a vat, I express a falsehood in uttering the sentence “I am a brain in a vat.” 3) I am either a brain [...]

Entailment and Inference

I’ve been doing a little thinking about the differences between implications/entailments and inferences, or rather the rules or activity of inferring. The former is a relation between things like premises and conclusions and beliefs. Sentences can be in an entailment-relationship. Inferring seems to be an art form, even in deductive arguments. ‘Drawing an inference’ is [...]

“Simplicity”

…is the name of Herman Cappelen and John Hawthorne’s theory of truth and propositions in their new book Relativism and Monadic Truth. It contains five thesis which “fit together nicely”: T1: There are propositions and they instantiate the fundamental monadic properties of truth simpliciter and falsity simpliciter. T2: The semantic values of declarative sentences relative [...]