The Deflationary Approach to Truth

"Deflationary" theories are views about truth that are often, but not always, characterized as accounts that accept the utility of the truth predicate without granting the metaphysical or epistemological assumptions that usually go along with it. The Deflationary Approach to Truth: A Guide presents a detailed, up-to-date, and historically informed survey and critical explication of the deflationary approach to the topic of truth, paying special attention to the wide range of various deflationary theories. In Part One, Bradley Armour-Garb and James A. Woodbridge explain what the deflationary approach to truth involves and develop a useful framework that clarifies how it differs from the traditional, "inflationary" approach. The framework illuminates certain general deflationary themes in terms of what Armour-Garb and Woodbridge call broad four-dimensional deflationism. This analysis reveals four different dimensions that any deflationary account must satisfy: Linguistic Deflationism, Metaphysical Deflationism, Conceptual Deflationism, and Paradox Treatment Deflationism. Armour-Garb and Woodbridge examine the degree to which these dimensions are displayed in early, "proto-deflationary" accounts before explaining the different contemporary deflationary views and assessing the degree to which these accounts adhere to the four deflationary dimensions, differ from inflationism, and differ from each other. In Part Two, Armour-Garb and Woodbridge examine various challenges to deflationism, systematizing them by considering each deflationary dimension and grouping the challenges in terms of which dimension they target. For each challenge, they explain its historical development and investigate the extent to which the most prominent contemporary deflationary accounts answer, or fail to answer, that challenge. In Part Three, Armour-Garb and Woodbridge explore fruitful new directions for deflationism and develop a version of the approach that they think best handles the challenges that are examined in Part Two. The result is an accessible yet comprehensive overview of the challenges to and merits of the deflationary approach to truth.

Bradley Armour-Garb is Professor and Department Chair of Philosophy at the University at Albany-SUNY. His primary interests are in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of logic, and metaphysics with an interest in epistemology, and the philosophy of mathematics. Much of his work has regarded truth and paradox. He is the author and editor of several books. James A. Woodbridge is Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His primary philosophical interests are in philosophy of language, metaphysics, and philosophical logic. He is the co-author, with Bradley Armour-Garb, of Pretense and Pathology: Philosophical Fictionalism and its Applications (2015).

PART 1: WHAT DEFLATIONISM IS1. Framing the General Approach1.1 Deflationism vs. Inflationism1.2 The Dimensions of Deflationism1.3 On the Instability of "Partial Deflationism"1.4 Motivations and Methodological Disputes2. Early and Proto-Deflationary Accounts2.1 Frege on Truth2.2 Ramsey and the Redundancy Theory2.3 Ayer on 'True'2.4 Wittgenstein on Truth-Talk2.5 Strawson on What We Do with Truth-Talk2.6 Tarski and the (T)-Schema3. The Species of Deflationism3.1 Prosententialism3.1.1 Prior's Adverbial Prosententialism3.1.2 Williams's Substitutional Prosententialism3.1.3 Grover, Camp, and Belnap's Atomic Prosententialism3.1.4 Brandom's Operator Prosententialism3.2 Disquotationalism3.2.1 Quine's Disquotationalism3.2.2 Leeds's Recursive Disquotationalism3.2.3 Field's Pure Disquotational Truth3.3 Minimalism3.3.1 Horwich's Minimalism3.3.2 Hill's Substitutional MinimalismPART 2. CHALLENGES TO DEFLATIONISM4. Challenges to Linguistic Deflationism4.1 Immanence and Limitations on Truth-Ascriptions4.1.1 Immanence and Deflationism4.1.2 Immanence, Foreign Sentences, Sentences Speakers Do Not Understand4.2 The Formulation and Generalization Problems4.2.1 The Formulation Problem4.2.2 Understanding the Generalization Problem4.2.3 Justifying Generalizations vs. Proving Generalizations4.2.4 Field and Hill on Proving Generalizations5. Challenges to Metaphysical Deflationism5.1 The Causal-Explanatory Role Challenge5.1.1 Explaining the Success of Science5.1.2 Explaining Behavioral Success5.2 The Conservativeness Argument5.2.1 Explaining the Conservativeness Argument5.2.2 Responses to the Conservativeness Argument5.2.3 Consequences of the Conservativeness Argument5.3 The Correspondence Intuition, Truthmaking, and the Truth Property Thesis5.3.1 From the Correspondence Intuition to Truth-Maker Theory5.3.2 The Truth-Property Thesis5.4 The Challenge from Normativity6. Challenges to Conceptual Deflationism6.1 "Truth-Involving" Accounts That Deflationists Can Accept6.2 "Truth-Involving" Accounts That Deflationists Must Replace6.3 Deflationism and Theories of Meaning/Content7. Formal Challenges and Paradox Treatment Deflationism7.1 Constraints on an Adequate Resolution of the Liar Paradox7.1.1 General Constraints on Adequate Paradox Treatment7.1.2 Constraints for Paradox Treatment Deflationism7.2 Tarski's Replacement Theory and the Liar Paradox7.3 Kripke and Ungroundedness7.4 Field on the 'Determinately' Operator7.5 Grover and Semantic Inheritors7.6 Horwich's Semantic Epistemicism7.7 Deflationary Dialetheism7.8 Deflationism, the Paradoxes, and Concluding RemarksAppendix: New Directions via Sentential-Variable Deflationism and Alethic FictionalismA.1 ASVD and the "How-Talk" NLI ApproachA.2 The Merits of ASVDA.2.1 Avoiding the Formulation and Generalization ProblemsA.2.2 Emergence and Resolution of the Liar ParadoxA.2.3 ASVD and the Conservativeness ArgumentA.2.4 Why Have a Truth Predicate?A.3 From ASVD to Alethic FictionalismA.4 Conclusions: Accommodating Broad Four-Dimensional DeflationismBibliographyindex