Truth And Assertibility

Truth And Assertibility
Author: Nik Weaver
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2015-04-22
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 9814619981

The book is a research monograph on the notions of truth and assertibility as they relate to the foundations of mathematics. It is aimed at a general mathematical and philosophical audience. The central novelty is an axiomatic treatment of the concept of assertibility. This provides us with a device that can be used to handle difficulties that have plagued philosophical logic for over a century. Two examples relate to Frege's formulation of second-order logic and Tarski's characterization of truth predicates for formal languages. Both are widely recognized as fundamental advances, but both are also seen as being seriously flawed: Frege's system, as Russell showed, is inconsistent, and Tarski's definition fails to capture the compositionality of truth. A formal assertibility predicate can be used to repair both problems. The repairs are technically interesting and conceptually compelling. The approach in this book will be of interest not only for the uses the author has put it to, but also as a flexible tool that may have many more applications in logic and the foundations of mathematics.

Assertion

Assertion
Author: M. Jary
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2010-07-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0230274617

Assertion is a term frequently used in linguistics and philosophy but rarely defined. This in-depth study surveys and synthesizes a range of philosophical, linguistic and psychological literature on the topic, and then presents a detailed account of the cognitive processes involved in the interpretation of assertions.

Pragmatism as a Way of Life

Pragmatism as a Way of Life
Author: Hilary Putnam
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2017-05-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0674979222

Throughout his diverse and highly influential career, Hilary Putnam was famous for changing his mind. As a pragmatist he treated philosophical “positions” as experiments in deliberate living. His aim was not to fix on one position but to attempt to do justice to the depth and complexity of reality. In this new collection, he and Ruth Anna Putnam argue that key elements of the classical pragmatism of William James and John Dewey provide a framework for the most progressive and forward-looking forms of philosophy in contemporary thought. The Putnams present a compelling defense of the radical originality of the philosophical ideas of James and Dewey and their usefulness in confronting the urgent social, political, and moral problems of the twenty-first century. Pragmatism as a Way of Life brings together almost all of the Putnams’ pragmatist writings—essays they wrote as individuals and as coauthors. The pragmatism they endorse, though respectful of the sciences, is an open experience-based philosophy of our everyday lives that trenchantly criticizes the fact/value dualism running through contemporary culture. Hilary Putnam argues that all facts are dependent on cognitive values, while Ruth Anna Putnam turns the problem around, illuminating the factual basis of moral principles. Together, they offer a shared vision which, in Hilary’s words, “could serve as a manifesto for what the two of us would like philosophy to look like in the twenty-first century and beyond.”

Truth

Truth
Author: David Wood
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2008-04-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1405137886

Setting the stage with a selection of readings from importantnineteenth century philosophers, this reader on truth puts inconversation some of the main philosophical figures from thetwentieth century in the analytic, continental, and pragmatisttraditions. Focuses on the value or normativity of truth through exposingthe dialogues between different schools of thought Features philosophical figures from the twentieth century inthe analytic, continental, and pragmatist traditions Topics addressed include the normative relation between truthand subjectivity, consensus, art, testimony, power, andcritique Includes essays by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, James, Heidegger,Merleau-Ponty, Wittgenstein, Levinas, Arendt, Foucault, Rorty,Davidson, Habermas, Derrida, and many others

What's the Use of Truth?

What's the Use of Truth?
Author: Richard Rorty
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 100
Release: 2007
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780231140140

American pragmatist Rorty and the French analytic philosopher Engel present their radically different perspectives on truth and its correspondence to reality. "What's the Use of Truth?" is a rare opportunity to experience each side of this impassioned debate clearly and concisely.

The Pragmatists and the Human Logic of Truth

The Pragmatists and the Human Logic of Truth
Author: Claudine Tiercelin
Publisher: Collège de France
Total Pages: 82
Release: 2014-10-14
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 272260339X

The expression “human logic of truth” is Frank P. Ramsey’s:“Let us therefore try to get an idea of a human logic which shall not attempt to be reducible to formal logic. Logic, we may agree, is concerned not with what men actually believe, but what they ought to believe, or what it would be reasonable to believe. What then, we must ask, is meant by saying that it is reasonable for a man to have such and such a degree of belief in a proposition?” Many themes developed by Ramsey in his work (on belief, truth, knowledge, but also in ethics)manifest the outstanding inspiration of the founder of pragmatism, C. S. Peirce, who is explicitly referred to in several places. Fundamentally, Peirce’s conception of truth is such that he who searches it may be able and forced to adopt it. The human logic of truth he defends goes hand in hand with the view that “real pragmatic truth is truth as can and ought to be used as a guide for conduct”. While the views of other major pragmatists (William James, John Dewey, and Hilary Putnam) are also carefully analyzed and contrasted, Peirce’s conception is shown to present at least three advantages: “to provide the rational framework for inquiry to proceed” (it is genuinely “logical”), to “make sense of the practice of inquiry as the search for truth”, as something which is not transcendent, beyond inquiry, but accessible (it is genuinely “human”), and finally “to justify a methodology” by encouraging the inquirer to put his beliefs to the test of experience.

Vagueness and Degrees of Truth

Vagueness and Degrees of Truth
Author: Nicholas J. J. Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2008-11-06
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199233004

iVagueness and Degrees of Truth develops and defends a new position on vagueness. To make the book accessible to non-specialists, Nicholas Smith includes both an introduction to the relevant philosophical literature, and a gentle but thorough introduction to the required logical tools and concepts.

Truth and Skepticism

Truth and Skepticism
Author: Robert Almeder
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2010-08-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1442205156

Robert Almeder provides a comprehensive discussion and definitive refutation of our common conception of truth as a necessary condition for knowledge of the world, and to defend in detail an epistemic conception of truth without falling into the usual epistemological relativism or classical idealism in which all properties of the world turn out to be linguistic in nature and origin. There is no other book available that clearly and thoroughly defends the case for an epistemic conception of truth and also claims success in avoiding idealism or epistemological relativism.

Knowledge and Lotteries

Knowledge and Lotteries
Author: John Hawthorne
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2004
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199269556

This work is organized around an epistemological puzzle: in many cases, we seem consistently inclined to deny that we know a certain class of propositions while crediting ourselves with knowledge of propositions that imply them. The text explores questions on the nature and importance of knowledge.