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Helsinki Metaphysical Club: Fabien Schang - Truth, truth-values, and the like

Abstract:

Logic and epistemology are both related to truth, although these areas of philosophy deal with this central concept from different perspectives. Although the common distinction between formal and material truth is meant to avoid any ambiguity between the two disciplines, I want to discuss the reasons why a pragmatist approach to truth threatens this very borderline. For this purpose, I advocate several topics from epistemic logic to the theory of opposition.

My thesis is that the ensuing coherence theory of truth should justify an alternative semantics, thereby revisiting the usual concept of truth-value in logic through a fallibilist defence of truth in epistemology.

The result is a structural theory of meaning and a Boolean algebra of bitstrings, whereby the so-called truth-value of a proposition is replaced by the logical value of a statement. The transition from a fallibilist theory of truth to a non-Fregean theory of logic will serve as a guideline for the whole talk.