Abstract
We discuss two desirable properties of deflationary truth theories: conservativeness and maximality. Joining them together, we obtain a notion of a maximal conservative truth theory – a theory which is conservative over its base, but can’t be enlarged any further without losing its conservative character. There are indeed such theories; we show however that none of them is axiomatizable, and moreover, that there will be in fact continuum many theories of this sort. It turns out in effect that the deflationist still needs some additional principles, which would permit him to construct his preferred theory of truth.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Field, H.: 1999, Deflating the conservativeness argument, Journal of Philosophy 96, 533–540.
Gauker, C.: 2001, T-schema deflationism versus Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem, Analysis 61, 129–135.
Halbach, V.: 2001, How innocent is deflationism?, Synthese 126, 167–194.
Kaye, R.: 1991, Models of Peano Arithmetic, Clarendon, Oxford.
Ketland, J.: 1999, Deflationism and Tarski’s paradise, Mind 108, 69–94.
Ketland, J.: 2005, Deflationism and the Göel phenomena: reply to Tennant, Mind 114, 75–88.
McGee, V.: 1992, Maximal consistent sets of instances of Tarski’s schema (T), Journal of Philosophical Logic 21, 235–241.
Shapiro, S.: 1998, Proof and truth – through thick and thin, Journal of Philosophy 95, 493–522.
Tennant, N.: 2002, Deflationism and the Gödel phenomena, Mind 111, 551–582.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cieśliński, C. DEFLATIONISM, CONSERVATIVENESS AND MAXIMALITY. J Philos Logic 36, 695–705 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-007-9057-z
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-007-9057-z