Pretense and Pathology
Philosophical Fictionalism and its Applications

This book provides a new philosophical fictionalism to solve traditional paradoxes and puzzles in the philosophy of language and metaphysics.

Bradley Armour-Garb (Author), James A. Woodbridge (Author)

9781107028272, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 July 2015

286 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.55 kg

'Pretense and Pathology is a superb examination of the important fictionalist metaphysical strategies, followed by an impressive development and defense of the authors' preferred form of fictionalism and its application to several vexed areas of discourse.' Kendall L. Walton, University of Michigan

In this book, Bradley Armour-Garb and James A. Woodbridge distinguish various species of fictionalism, locating and defending their own version of philosophical fictionalism. Addressing semantic and philosophical puzzles that arise from ordinary language, they consider such issues as the problem of non-being, plural identity claims, mental-attitude ascriptions, meaning attributions, and truth-talk. They consider 'deflationism about truth', explaining why deflationists should be fictionalists, and show how their philosophical fictionalist account of truth-talk underwrites a dissolution of the Liar Paradox and its kin. They further explore the semantic notions of reference and predicate-satisfaction, showing how philosophical fictionalism can also resolve puzzles that these notions appear to present. Their critical examination of fictionalist approaches in philosophy, together with the development and application of their own brand of philosophical fictionalism, will be of great interest to scholars and upper-level students of philosophy of language, metaphysics, philosophical logic, philosophy of mind, epistemology, and linguistics.

Preface
1. Philosophical fictionalism
2. Semantic pretense-involving fictionalism and existence-talk
3. Propositional realism and a SPIF account of proposition-talk
4. T-deflationism and a SPIF account of truth-talk
5. Diagnosing and treating the Liar Paradox and other apparent alethic pathologies
6. SPIF accounts of reference-talk and predicate-satisfaction-talk and apparent non-alethic semantic pathology
7. Extensions and objections
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Pathology [MMF], Philosophy of mind [HPM], Philosophy: logic [HPL], Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge [HPK], Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology [HPJ], Philosophy [HP], Fiction & related items [F], Semantics, discourse analysis, etc [CFG], Philosophy of language [CFA], Linguistics [CF]