To briefly describe the main components of conceptual deflationism as well as the minimalist development of this view. To develop a solution to Bar-On and Simmons' claim challenge to conceptual deflationism, drawing on recent work by Neri Marsili. They do this by encouraging us to focus on questions of truth that are very easy to address and therefore likely to elicit dialectics.
Linguistic question: What truth-related terms do we use in common contexts (eg “true”), why do we use these terms, and what do they mean. Cognitive Question: What are the conditions of possession and function of our ordinary concept of TRUTH, and how does this concept relate to our other concepts. In this talk: I will develop a response to a major criticism of deflationism about the concept of TRUTH.
Whatever else we wish to say about its nature, TRUTH is meant to be a mental entity that thinkers employ when they have thoughts involving truth. For example: If I believe that some of the things that Susan says about gardening are true, then it would be standard for me to apply the concept of TRUTH in having this thought. The function of TRUTH, according to Horwich, is to enable us to make certain kinds of general statements and have corresponding general beliefs.
Marie tells me that she recently watched one of Walter's YouTube videos about kitchen renovation, and she remembers him saying one very insightful thing about cooktops, although she can't remember what it was.
Conceptual deflationism: an illustration
What's more: the minimalist claims that people do not need the concept of TRUTH+, whose conditions for possession are more demanding than those for TRUTH. Example: the TRUTHG concept, whose property conditions consist of minimalist property conditions, plus. The minimalist argues that TRUTH does all the things we need the concept of truth to do, so we simply don't need a concept like TRUTH.
The assertion challenge
The minimalist claims that the function of TRUTH is to enable us to make general statements and hold general beliefs such as the belief in (1). For example: Donald didn't hold Wellington in his outstretched hands, he didn't unveil Wellington by pulling back a curtain, he didn't shine a huge spotlight on Wellington, etc. The minimalist might respond by suggesting that he presented Wellington as being windy is to represent Wellington as being windy.
But: they will then trade the assertion challenge for the challenge of presenting a deflationary account of representation. This is because: Donald can present ‹Wellington is windy› to an audience without presenting ‹Wellington is windy› as true to that audience.
The assertion challenge: a response
Exactness: The characterization of [T] must be “given in a precise form so that [T] is introduced into a well-connected system of scientific concepts” (ibid.). Fertility: [T]hey should be fruitful as it is “useful for the formulation of many universal statements (empirical laws in the case of an illogical concept, logical propositions in the case of a logical concept)” (ibid.). Since we will posit only one explication AS IT IS TRUE for the PRESENT ‹P›, we can leave (iv) aside in what follows.
Marsili’s explicatum
The explanation proposed by Marsili's version is: SPEECH WORK C IS ONLY SUCCESSFUL/CORRECT/RIGHT IF ‹P› IS TRUE (call this concept T). For example: We can use T to distinguish Donald's claim that Wellington is windy from a question, command, conjecture or supposition with the same propositional content. But: even before doing so, we can apparently identify true universal statements that incorporate T. Every assertion of ‹p› is only successful/correct/correct if ‹p›. It is not the case that a question, command, conjecture or supposition with propositional content is ‹p›. successful/correct/correct only if ‹p› is true.
As previously indicated, since we are not comparing otherwise equivalent explicata for PRESENT ‹P› AS ISING TRUE, we can override simplicity here. However, it is worth noting that the concept SPEECH LAW C. SUCCESSFUL/CORRECT/RIGHT ONLY IF ‹P› IS TRUE seems quite simple. This suggests that it will fare well against otherwise equivalent explanations for PRESENT ‹P› AS ISING TRUE.
These considerations suggest that Marsili has identified an adequate explanation for the concept of PRESENT ‹P› AS BEING. Reformulated in relation to Marsilis explicatum (A) becomes:. AM) Donald claimed that Wellington blows because Donald uttered an expression with the semantic content ‹Wellington is. If the concept of truth used on (AM)'s right is the minimalist concept TRUTH, then it should be possible.
AM-) Donald claimed that Wellington is windy because Donald uttered an expression with the semantic content ‹Wellington is. This suggests that the concept of truth that figures in (AM) is indeed a minimalist concept of TRUTH. Again, it is easy enough to create a truth-free statement that is equivalent to (FDM):. FDM-) If S asserts that p, then it is (at least in part) because S performs the speech act C, that is.
This suggests that the concept of truth used on (FDM's) right is also the minimalist concept TRUTH. In short: it seems that the minimalist can defuse the assertion challenge by using Marsili's explicatum for PRESENT ‹P› AS BEING.
Conclusions
