 2016 - 2017 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 0618-2303-01 | Truth | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| FACULTY OF HUMANITIES | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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University credit hours: 2.0
Course description
Questions about truth have preoccupied philosophy throughout its history. What sorts of things can be true or false? Does truth depend on a relation between what we say or think and things in the world? Can there be in-principle unknowable truths? Why should it matter whether our beliefs are true or not? Is truth the end of inquiry? What distinguishes between the content of a true statement and its truth? What is special about the truth predicate? Is there such a property - truth - that attaches to things we say or believe? Many philosophers have held that there is, but attempts to provide an adequate account of that property have run into difficulties. We will learn about some of these attempts and some proposed ways around these obstacles. Some philosophers deny that there is philosophical interest in a positive account of truth. We'll consider some salient motivations for taking a philosophical interest in such an account, and in theories or definitions of truth. By these means we'll uncover surprising consequences of some of the most elementary and apparently trivial properties of the concept of truth and of the truth predicate. Readings from Plato, Leibniz, Kant, Frege, Russell, James, Ramesy, Quine, Dummett, Tarski, Davidson, Kripke, Putnam, Field.