question about NTV and deflationism...
So, I was wondering if it is necessary for a deflationist to take a NTV route with conditionals? Or would they explain its meaning in terms of a truth-predicate of some meta-language? And if that's the case, would they then use a similar type of truth predicate in the meta-language? But if they do that, it just seems like a side step to the real issue.
I'm not sure you can explain meaning in terms of use only without appealing to truth some time down the line.
Anyway, I don't know if this makes any sense or not, but if anyone can explain it to me that would be great.
-Ryan
posted by Ryan @ 9:55 AM
2 Comments:
Ryan, can you restate the question so that the deflationism you have in mind is spelled out in just a little more detail?
Is the problem that for a Tarski Biconditional theory of truth, the sentence, "T.O. will have a great year if he doesn't talk about Drew Bledsoe to reporters," is true if and only if T.O. will have a great year if he doesn't talk about Drew Bledsoe to reporters?
--IJD
The kind of deflationism I have in mind is what Dummett is quoted as saying:
"In order that someone should gain from the explanation that P is true in such-and-such circumstances an understanding of the sense of P, he must already know what it means to say of P that it is true. If when he enquires into this he is told that the only explanation is that to say that P is true is the same as to asser P, it will follow that in order to understand what is meant by saying that P is true, he must already understand the sense of asserting P, which was precisely what was supposed to be being explained to him.
We have thus either to supplement the redundancy theory of give up many of our preconceptions about truth and falsity." (Dummett, M. (1978): 'Truth', in Truth and Other Enigmas, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.)
I am more or less wondering if there is an interpretation of this, or another version of deflationism that still preserves some notion of truth... And if not, then does a NTV account come into play?
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