New essays on the knowability paradox / edited by Joe Salerno.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Salerno, Joe.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Paradox.

Physical Description:

xi, 373 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2009.

Summary:

In 1945 Alonzo Church issued a pair of referee reports in which he anonymously conveyed to Frederic Fitch a surprising proof showing that wherever there is (empirical) ignorance there is also logically unknowable truth. Fitch published this and a generalization of the result in 1963. Ever since, philosophers have been attempting to understand the significance and address the counter-intuitiveness of this, the so-called paradox of knowability.

New Essays on the Knowability Paradox assembles Church's referee reports. Fitch's 1963 paper, and nineteen new papers on the knowability paradox. The contributors include logicians and philosophers from three continents, many of who have already made important contributions to the discussion of the problem. The volume contains a general introduction to the paradox and the background literature, and is divided into seven sections that roughly mark the central points of debate. The sections include the history of the paradox. Michael Dummett's constructivism, issues of paraconsistency, developments of modal and temporal logics, Cartesian restricted theories of truth, modal and mathematical fictionalism, and reconsiderations about how, and whether we ought, to construe an anti-realist theory of truth.

Contents:

Early history

Referee reports on Fitch's "definition of value" / Alonzo Church

A logical analysis of some value concepts / Frederic B. Fitch

Knowability noir, 1945

1963 / Joe Salerno

Dummett's constructivism

Fitch's paradox of knowability / Michael Dummett

The paradox of knowability and the mapping objection / Stig Alstrup Rasmussen

Truth, indefinite extensibility, and fitch's paradox / Jose Luis Bermudez

Paraconsistency and paracompleteness

Beyond the limits of knowledge / Graham Priest

Knowability and possible epistemic oddities / J.C. Beall

Epistemic and temporal operators : actions, times and types

Actions that make us know / Johan van Benthem

Can truth out? / Johnw Burgess

Logical types in some arguments about knowability and belief / Bernard Linsky

Cartesian restricted truth

Tennant's troubles / Timothy Williamson

Restriction strategies for knowability : some lessons in false hope / Jonathan L. Kvanvig

Revamping the restriction strategy / Neil Tennant

Modal and mathematical fictions

On keeping blue swans and unknowable facts at bay : a case study on Fitch's paradox / Berit Brogaard

Fitch's paradox and the philosophy of mathematics / Otavio Bueno

Knowability reconsidered

Performance and paradox / Michael Hand

The mystery of the disappearing diamond / C.S. Jenkins

Invincible ignorance / W.D. Hart

Two deflationary approaches to fitch-style reasoning / Christoph Kelp and Duncan Pritchard

Not every truth can be known (at least, not all at once) / Greg Restall.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [355]-365) and index.

ISBN:

9780199285495

0199285497

OCLC:

184825546