Truth and Objectivity

by Crispin Wright

Overview

Crispin Wright offers an original perspective on the place of “realism” in philosophical inquiry. He proposes a radically new framework for discussing the claims of the realists and the anti-realists. This framework rejects the classical “deflationary” conception of truth yet allows both disputants to respect the intuition that judgments, whose status they contest, are at least semantically fitted for truth and may often justifiably be regarded as true. In the course of his argument, Wright offers original critical discussions of many central concerns of philosophers interested in realism, including the “deflationary” conception of truth, internal realist truth, scientific realism and the theoreticity of observation, and the role of moral states of affairs in explanations of moral beliefs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674045385
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	07/01/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	261
Lexile:	1530L (what's this?)
File size:	403 KB

About the Author

Crispin Wright is Leverhulme Research Professor and Bishop Wardlaw Professor at the University of St. Andrews and is Global Distinguished Professor at New York University.

Table of Contents

Contents

1.
Inflating Deflationism


2.
Minimal Truth, Internal Realism and Superassertibility


3.
Convergence and Cognitive Command


Appendix: The Euthyphro Contrast


4.
Cognitive Command and the Theoreticity of Observation


5.
Realism and the Best Explanation of Belief


6.
Quietism


Appendix: On an Argument against the Coherence of Minimalism about Meaning


Index

Editorial Reviews

Truth and Objectivity is a strikingly resourceful and serious book, imbued with respect for the difficulty of philosophical problems and a readiness to probe them with all the conceptual instruments of contemporary analytic philosophy.
-- Timothy Williamson International Journal of Philosophical Studies

A milestone in the discussion of realism.
-- Jim Edwards Mind

Full of interesting ideas and challenging arguments.
-- Frank Jackson Philosophical Books

Besides its thorough and subtle examination of [the] multiple criteria of realism, the merit of Truth and Objectivity is to have shown how the naive picture of ‘objective facts’ fragments under scrutiny, to the point that it becomes unclear that we should continue to speak of realism and anti-realism within a domain as if they were definitive positions.
-- Paul Horwich Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher