This book analyses and defends the deflationist claim that there is nothing deep about our notion of truth. According to this view, truth is a 'light' and innocent concept, devoid of any essence which could be revealed by scientific inquiry. Cezary Cieśliński considers this claim in light of recent formal results on axiomatic truth theories, which are crucial for understanding and evaluating the philosophical thesis of the innocence of truth. Providing an up-to-date discussion and original perspectives on this central and controversial issue, his book will be important for those with a background in logic who are interested in formal truth theories and in current philosophical debates about the deflationary conception of truth.

The aim of this volume is to open up new perspectives and to raise new research questions about a unified approach to truth, modalities, and propositional attitudes. The volume’s essays are grouped thematically around different research questions. The first theme concerns the tension between the theoretical role of the truth predicate in semantics and its expressive function in language. The second theme of the volume concerns the interaction of truth with modal and doxastic notions. The third theme covers higher-order solutions to the semantic and modal paradoxes, providing an alternative to first-order solutions embraced in the first two themes. This book will be of interest to researchers working in epistemology, logic, philosophy of logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, and semantics. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This book presents a detailed treatment of ordinal combinatorics of large sets tailored for independence results. It uses model theoretic and combinatorial methods to obtain results in proof theory, such as incompleteness theorems or a description of the provably total functions of a theory. In the first chapter, the authors first discusses ordinal combinatorics of finite sets in the style of Ketonen and Solovay. This provides a background for an analysis of subsystems of Peano Arithmetic as well as for combinatorial independence results. Next, the volume examines a variety of proofs of Gödel's incompleteness theorems. The presented proofs differ strongly in nature. They show various aspects of incompleteness phenomena. In additon, coverage introduces some classical methods like the arithmetized completeness theorem, satisfaction predicates or partial satisfaction classes. It also applies them in many contexts. The fourth chapter defines the method of indicators for obtaining independence results. It shows what amount of transfinite induction we have in fragments of Peano arithmetic. Then, it uses combinatorics of large sets of the first chapter to show independence results. The last chapter considers nonstandard satisfaction classes. It presents some of the classical theorems related to them. In particular, it covers the results by S. Smith on definability in the language with a satisfaction class and on models without a satisfaction class. Overall, the book's content lies on the border between combinatorics, proof theory, and model theory of arithmetic. It offers readers a distinctive approach towards independence results by model-theoretic methods.

This Undergraduate Textbook introduces key methods and examines the major areas of philosophy in which formal methods play pivotal roles. Coverage begins with a thorough introduction to formalization and to the advantages and pitfalls of formal methods in philosophy. The ensuing chapters show how to use formal methods in a wide range of areas. Throughout, the contributors clarify the relationships and interdependencies between formal and informal notions and constructions. Their main focus is to show how formal treatments of philosophical problems may help us understand them better. Formal methods can be used to solve problems but also to express new philosophical problems that would never have seen the light of day without the expressive power of the formal apparatus. ​Formal philosophy merges work in different areas of philosophy as well as logic, mathematics, computer science, linguistics, physics, psychology, biology, economics, political theory, and sociology. This title offers an accessible introduction to this new interdisciplinary research area to a wide academic audience.

This book collects the refereed proceedings of the 8th Indian Conference on Logic and Its Applications, ICLA 2019, held in Delhi, India, in March 2019. The volume contains 13 full revised papers along with 6 invited talks presented at the conference. The aim of this conference series is to bring together researchers from a wide variety of fields in which formal logic plays a significant role. Areas of interest include mathematical and philosophical logic, computer science logic, foundations and philosophy of mathematics and the sciences, use of formal logic in areas of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence, logic and linguistics, and the relationship between logic and other branches of knowledge. Of special interest are studies in systems of logic in the Indian tradition, and historical research on logic.

How should we react to philosophical skepticism? Jeffrey P. Whitman answers this question in The Power and Value of Philosophical Skepticism by examining analytic and post-analytic responses to the problem of skepticism concerning our knowledge of the external world. Whitman analyzes skeptical arguments that call into question our ability to obtain empirical knowledge. He tests analytical theories of knowledge (foundationalism, coherentalism, and reliabilism) and the post-analytical responses of Donald Davidson and Richard Rorty against skeptical arguments. Whitman explores the failure of analytic and post-analytic theories and concludes that embracing a theoretical version of philosophical skepticism has advantages over post-analytic responses - both in the realm of philosophical inquiry and in everyday life.

With nearly 300 entries on key concepts, review essays on central issues, and self-profiles by leading scholars, this companion is the most comprehensive and up-to-date single volume reference guide to epistemology. Epistemology from A-Z is comprised of 296 articles on important epistemological concepts that have been extensively revised to bring the volume up-to-date, with many new and re-written entries reflecting developments in the field Includes 20 new self-profiles by leading epistemologists Contains 10 new review essays on central issues of epistemology

First published in 1998. The emphasis upon differences, plurality and multiculturalism has led to an outpouring of information that has been interpreted by theories such as pragmatism, communitarianism, feminism, postmodern discourse and liberation ethics. Up to now, these issues have been seen as particular and external objects for theoretical discussion. This book goes to the heart of the matter and opens promising avenues for further philosophical reflection on these topics. Having the conception of communication in discourse theory as point of departure, scholars of distinct philosophical backgrounds move in and out of different contexts to offer a first-hand and in-depth account of the above positions in their dialogue with discourse theory. By establishing a web, they connect distinct issues that have been dealt with only separately thus far, without losing sight of differences. In the end, A Matter of Discourse shows that pluralism and multiculturalism are to be found within philosophy itself.

The book provides a historical (with an outline of the history of the concept of truth from antiquity to our time) and systematic exposition of the semantic theory of truth formulated by Alfred Tarski in the 1930s. This theory became famous very soon and inspired logicians and philosophers. It has two different, but interconnected aspects: formal-logical and philosophical. The book deals with both, but it is intended mostly as a philosophical monograph. It explains Tarski’s motivation and presents discussions about his ideas (pro and contra) as well as points out various applications of the semantic theory of truth to philosophical problems (truth-criteria, realism and anti-realism, future contingents or the concept of correspondence between language and reality).