Topic: defl@tionism
Disquotationalism and Expressiveness
By Gary Kemp
With a truth-predicate ‘True’ we can write:(1) ∀x[φ(x) → True(x)]
We expect this to be equivalent in some suitable sense to the infinite set of instances of φ⌈Si⌉→Si. We expect the truth-predicate to enable us to express infinite conjunctions (or infinite disjunctions, in the case of existential generalisations), where no conjunct (disjunct) expresses anything not expressible without a truth-predicate. According to standard deflationism, since the expression of such generalisations is the only theoretically essential role discharged by a truth-predicate, adding a truth-predicate to a language does not extend the domain of facts treated of by the language.(...)
Posted by Tony Marmo
at 00:01 BST
Updated: Wednesday, 14 September 2005 00:23 BST
