3 A paradox of truth minimalism *

Disquotational accounts of tmth are cornmonly snbject to a number of objections. As it happens, however, there are several different ways of understanding disquotationalism; evaluating the criticisms requires sorting out these different interpretations. 1 shall distinguish 'minimalist' from 'semanticist' disquotationalism, and argue that only the latter is really consistent with what are commonly taken to be the core ideas of disquotationalism. The fuudamental difference Jies in the following: minimalism is an attempt to elucidate disquotational ideas by means of a semantically very sparse machinery, avoiding any substantial semantic commitment. This is because, in one way or other, minimalist disquotationalism is driven by the desire to produce a deflationist account of content. This desire, though, is a1ien to the project of offering a disquotational account of truth. What is even worse, in my view, it is at odds with it: thereby the paradox. Without attempting a defence of the semantic conception, in this paper 1 shall concentrate on arguing that minimalist disquotationalism does not follow from disquotational ideas, but is prima Jade at odds with them, and I shall pUl forward sorne difficulties for ntinimalist theories. In the first section I set out briefly what I take to be the main differences between the two ways of understanding disquotational ideas. In the second, I develop the paradox which I find in minimalism. In the third, I present sorne related difficulties for mirtimalism, which may help the reader further to make out the differences between the two accounts, and which can provide further support for semanticist disquotationalism.