Skip to main content
Log in

Truth and reflection

  • Published:
Journal of Philosophical Logic Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Conclusion

Many topics have not been covered, in most cases because I don't know quite what to say about them. Would it be possible to add a decidability predicate to the language? What about stronger connectives, like exclusion negation or Lukasiewicz implication? Would an expanded language do better at expressing its own semantics? Would it contain new and more terrible paradoxes? Can the account be supplemented with a workable notion of inherent truth (see note 36)? In what sense does stage semantics lie “between” fixed point and stability semantics? In what sense, exactly, are our semantical rules inconsistent? In what sense, if any, does their inconsistency resolve the problem of the paradoxes?

The ideals of strength, grounding, and closure together define an intuitively appealing conception of truth. Nothing would be gained by insisting that it was the intuitive conception of truth, and in fact recent developments make me wonder whether such a thing exists. However that may be, until the alternatives are better understood it would be foolish to attempt to decide between them. Truth gives up her secrets slowly and grudgingly, and loves to confound our presumptions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

Bibliography

  • N.Belnap, ‘Gupta's rule of revision theory of truth’, Journal of Philosophical Logic 11 (1982), 103–116.

    Google Scholar 

  • C.Chihara, ‘The semantic paradoxes: a diagnostic investigation’, The Philosophical Review 88 (1979), 590–618.

    Google Scholar 

  • L.Davis, ‘An alternate formulation of Kripke's theory of truth’, Journal of Philosophical Logic 8 (1979), 289–296.

    Google Scholar 

  • A.Gupta, ‘Truth and paradox’, Journal of Philosophical Logic 11 (1982), 1–60.

    Google Scholar 

  • H.Herzberger, ‘Notes on naive semantics’, Journal of Philosophical Logic 11 (1982), 61–102.

    Google Scholar 

  • H.Herzberger, ‘Naive semantics and the liar paradox’, Journal of Philosophy 79 (1982), 479–497.

    Google Scholar 

  • S.Kripke, ‘Outline of a theory of truth’, Journal of Philosophy 72 (1975), 690–716.

    Google Scholar 

  • V. McGee, ‘Technical notes on three systems of naive semantics’, typescript.

  • Y. N.Moschovakis, Induction on Abstract Structures, North-Holland, Amsterdam 1974.

    Google Scholar 

  • C.Parsons, ‘The Liar paradox’, Journal of Philosophical Logic 3 (1974), 381–412.

    Google Scholar 

  • T.Parsons, ‘Assertion, denial and the Liar paradox’, Journal of Philosophical Logic 13 (1984), pp 137–152.

    Google Scholar 

  • G.Priest, ‘The logic of paradox’, Journal of Philosophical Logic 8 (1979), 219–241.

    Google Scholar 

  • W.Richter and P.Aczel, ‘Inductive definitions and reflecting properties of admissible ordinals’, in J. E.Fenstad and P. G.Hinman (eds.), Generalized Recursion Theory, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1974.

    Google Scholar 

  • B.vanFraassen, ‘Presupposition, implication, and self-reference’, Journal of Philosophy 65 (1968), 136–152.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • P.Woodruff, ‘Paradox, Truth, and Logic, Part I: Paradox and Truth’, Journal of Philosophical Logic 13 (1984), pp. 213–232.

    Google Scholar 

  • P.Woodruff, ‘Logic and truth value gaps’, in Lambert (ed.), Philosophical Problems in Logic, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, 1970.

    Google Scholar 

  • S.Yablo, ‘Grounding, dependence, and paradox’, Journal of Philosophical Logic 11 (1982), 117–137.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Yablo, S. Truth and reflection. J Philos Logic 14, 297–349 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00249368

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00249368

Keywords

Navigation