Stabilizing Alethic Pluralism

Abstract

Alethic pluralism is the view that the nature of truth is not uniform across domains. There are several ways of being true (T 1 ... T n ). A simple argument, the 'instability challenge ', purports to show that this view is inherently unstable. One can simply say that something is uniformly true if and only if it is T 1 or ... or T n . Being uniformly true is a single truth property that applies across the board, and so the nature of truth is uniform across domains, contra pluralism. I defend pluralism against the instability challenge. I show that the challenge bifurcates: one challenge is formulated in terms of predicates, and the other is formulated in terms of properties. The pluralist has the resources to defuse both of these. The sparse/abundant property distinction and considerations of explanatory asymmetry play a crucial role in my argument.

On Alethic Disjunctivism

“…Let us take the COMMONALITY constraint first: can disjunctivism give us a property which is possessed by all and only truths? A proposal that claims to do just this is offered by Pedersen (2010), which we can call ‘simple disjunctivism’. However, I will argue, we will need to make some amendments to simple disjunctivism in order to satisfy this criterion.…”

“…2 2 Views of this sort are those of Wright 1992; 2003; Lynch 2001; 2004a; 2009; Pedersen 2010 and Edwards 2011. …”

“…8 8 This constraint favours forms of what Pedersen (2010) calls “weak alethic pluralism” which requires that there be a general truth property in addition to the domain‐specific properties. This is in contrast to “strong alethic pluralism” which does not allow for a general truth property.…”

“…The option that will receive the most attention is the thought that one important dimension for assessing the robustness of a property is the sparseness of that property. As is noted below, property sparseness in the context of alethic pluralism is discussed by Pedersen (2006; 2010),…”

TRUTH AS ONE(S) AND MANY: ON LYNCH'S ALETHIC FUNCTIONALISM1

“…14 14 For more on alethic disjunctivism, see Pedersen (2006, 2010, forthcoming) and Pedersen and Wright (2012). Furthermore, see Cotnoir (2009, p. 478) and Edwards (forthcoming).…”