Deflationary Truth, Ordinary Truth and Relative Truth

Relativism, Assertion and Deflationary Truth∗

We provide a deflationarily acceptable account of assertion in truth-relativistic domains. First, we state what we take relativism and deflationism to be. Second, we clarify the problem of assertion in relativistic domains by singling out the features that make assertion within those domains problematic. Then, we tackle the problem directly by generalizing a standard deflationary account of the...

Introduction to Relative Truth

Nor are meta-linguistic claims such as ‘the proposition that Socrates was a philosopher is true’, ‘what John asserted at 3 o’clock on January 15, 2002 is false’, and ‘Since John said that it’s raining on January 15, 2002, and Mary said that it’s not raining on January 15, 2002, John and Mary disagree about whether it is raining on January 15, 2002’. There are two reasons why such talk, in stand...

1 Relative Truth

Future Contingents and Relative Truth

If it is not now determined whether there will be a sea battle tomorrow, can an assertion that there will be one be true? The problem has persisted because there are compelling arguments on both sides. If there are objectively possible futures which would make the prediction true and others which would make it false, symmetry considerations seem to forbid counting it either true or false. Yet i...

The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth

This discussion aims to provide the occasional medical expert witness with background knowledge of the adversarial court system and the role of the medical expert witness within it. The parallel evolution of the adversarial and inquisitorial legal systems has been more out of tradition rather than any systematic review of the effectiveness of one system or the other. Both legal systems have the...