The Epistemic Lightness of Truth
Deflationism and its Logic

This volume explores the deflationary claim of the innocence of truth, taking into account recent results on axiomatic truth theories.

Cezary Cie?li?ski (Author)

9781107197657, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 December 2017

312 pages
25.1 x 17.5 x 1.8 cm, 0.74 kg

'I cannot praise this book too highly. I predict that it will constitute indispensable reading for any researcher in the field (professional or postgraduate) for years to come. Many open problems are listed: many of them would constitute excellent subjects of a Ph.D. dissertation in philosophical logic; others set a research agenda that will keep a significant part of the next generation of researchers on axiomatic truth occupied.' Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

This book analyses and defends the deflationist claim that there is nothing deep about our notion of truth. According to this view, truth is a 'light' and innocent concept, devoid of any essence which could be revealed by scientific inquiry. Cezary Cie?li?ski considers this claim in light of recent formal results on axiomatic truth theories, which are crucial for understanding and evaluating the philosophical thesis of the innocence of truth. Providing an up-to-date discussion and original perspectives on this central and controversial issue, his book will be important for those with a background in logic who are interested in formal truth theories and in current philosophical debates about the deflationary conception of truth.

Introduction
1. Preliminaries
2. Approaches to truth
Part I. Disquotation: 3. Disquotational theories
4. Why do we need disquotational truth?
5. The generalisation problem
Part II. Conservativity: 6. (Non)conservativity of disquotation
7. CT? and CT: conservativity properties
8. Other compositional truth theories
9. Conservativity: philosophical motivations
10. Maximal conservative theories
11. The conservativeness argument
Part III. Reflection Principles: 12. The strength of reflection principles
13. Deflationism and truth-theoretical strength.

Subject Areas: Philosophy: logic [HPL], Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge [HPK], Philosophy [HP]