On the Functionalization of Pluralist Approaches to Truth

Abstract

Traditional inflationary approaches that specify the nature of truth are attractive in certain ways; yet, while many of these theories successfully explain why propositions in certain domains of discourse are true, they fail to adequately specify the nature of truth because they run up against counterexamples when attempting to generalize across all domains. One popular consequence is skepticism about the efficaciousness of inflationary approaches altogether. Yet, by recognizing that the failure to explain the truth of disparate propositions often stems from inflationary approaches' allegiance to alethic monism, pluralist approaches are able to avoid this explanatory inadequacy and the resulting skepticism, though at the cost of inviting other conceptual difficulties. A novel approach, alethic functionalism, attempts to circumvent the problems faced by pluralist approaches while preserving their main insights. Unfortunately, it too generates additional problems -namely, with its suspect appropriation of the multiple realizability paradigm and its platitude-based strategy -that need to be dissolved before it can constitute an adequate inflationary approach to the nature of truth.Synthese (2005) 145: 1-28

Truth, Ramsification, and the Pluralist's Revenge

“…Basically, T 0 is a specification of what must obtain for the postulate of T to be 4 Lewis allowed for the postulate of T to be of arbitrary length-anything from a single sentence to a decidably infinite set of sentences. As we shall see, its content must be anything but arbitrary, which immediately raises a thorny question about which principles to amass [Wright 2005]. Wright [2001: 759] claimed that anything 'chiming with' ordinary a priori platitudes should be initially counted, followed by later scrutinization.…”

“…Subsequently, enthusiasts of Ramsification commonly distinguish some privileged or essential subset of principles, which demarcates minimal competence with the concept expressed by the t-term, from the full amassed collection, which characterizes the conceptual content of T in its entirety [Lynch 2009: 13-16 ff]. There is a serious problem, however, with settling on the appropriate criteria for inclusion and exclusion [Wright 2005]. Since this so-called criteria problem is likely to remain unsettled for a while, let us momentarily bracket it and assume-with functionalists and other enthusiasts-that there is some extant procedure for fixing upon some subset of the essential or privileged principles, or at least some criteria for extracting and distilling them.…”

“…Yet, homomorphism is less intuitively plausible as a candidate for what truth consists in for true sentences in mathematics, comedy, 6 For further discussion of the scope problem, see Sher [1998Sher [ , 2004 and Lynch [2004]. For discussion of the problems faced by pluralists about truth, including equivocation, generalization, and mixed inference, see, e.g., Lynch [2000Lynch [ , 2004, Wright [2005], Sher [2005], and Pedersen [2006]. aesthetics and gastronomics, ethics, and a variety of other sectors of discourse.…”

“…Functionalists about truth must therefore take care to not proliferate functional specifications. Yet, functional specifications are easy to proliferate-formally speaking, one need only begin altering the identity-and truth-conditions of the content constituting them [Wright 2005]. Of course, as Lynch rightly pointed out, 'slight differences in [content] do not entail that we are simply talking past one another' [Lynch 2005: 39].…”

Three Forms of Pluralism about Truth

“…2 See, for example, [Wright 1992], [Sher 2004;2005]; [Cory Wright 2005]; [Pedersen 2006]; [Vision 2004]; [Tappolet 1997]; [Beall 2000] and [Lynch 2000;2001;2005;2006].…”