Cover of Croatian Journal of Philosophy
>> Go to Current Issue

Croatian Journal of Philosophy

Volume 11, Issue 2, 2011
Special Session on Mark Richard’s When Truth Gives Out

Table of Contents

Already a subscriber? - Login here
Not yet a subscriber? - Subscribe here

Browse by:



Displaying: 1-10 of 10 documents


special session on mark richard’s when truth gives out
1. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 11 > Issue: 2
Nenad Miščević Debating Expressivism
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
2. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 11 > Issue: 2
Mark Richard Precis of When Truth Gives Out
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
When Truth Gives Out discusses some of the relations between performative and expressive aspects of language and those aspects of language that determine truth conditions. Among the topics it takes up are slurring speech, the ‘Frege-Geach’ objection to expressivism, vagueness, and relativism. It develops an alternative to standard truth conditional semantics, one based on the notion of a commitment.
3. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 11 > Issue: 2
Michael P. Lynch Truth Pluralism, Truth Relativism and Truth-aptness
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
In this paper, I make two points about Richard’s truth relativism. First, I argue his truth relativism is at odds with his account of truth-aptness. Second, I argue that his truth relativism commits him to a form of pluralism about truth.
4. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 11 > Issue: 2
Nenad Miščević Slurs & Thick Concepts-is the New Expressivism Tenable?
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Mark Richard in his book offers a new and challenging expressivist theory of the use and semantics of slurs (pejoratives). The paper argues that in contrast, the central and standard uses of slurs are cognitive. It does so from the role of stereotypes in slurring, from fi gurative slurs and from the need for cognitive effort (or simple of knowledge of relevant presumed properties of the target). Since cognition has to do with truth and falsity, and since the cognitive task is a good indicator of semantic structure, it seems that the ascription of negative properties etc. indicates that they belong to the meaning of the slur, and that this meaning therefore confers truth-aptness. The (nasty) richness of meaning might vary with pejoratives: all of them involve “contemptible because G” at the very least. The most typical once carry more information. Some of it is given in the form of conceptual links roughly delineating the core stereotype associated with the pejorative, some in the form of fi gurative transfer of properties from some vehicle to the target member of G. So, slurs are not purely performative and expressive, but semantic in thetraditional, truth-directed sense. The truth-gap that might characterize the resulting sentences does not point to pejoratives not having ambition to say true and nasty things, but only to their failure in the attempt. The ambition defi nes the true-directed meanings of the assumptions, the failure just records that these assumptions are false about their targets. The paper leaves it open how central the truth-directed meanings are. The argument suggests that they are pretty central, either part of the core meaning, or of conventional implicature.
5. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 11 > Issue: 2
Isidora Stojanović When (True) Disagreement Gives Out
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
In this paper, I take issue with the proposal put forward by Mark Richard in When Truth Gives Out (2008) concerning disputes over issues such as who is rich, what is cool, and other issues of similar ilk. Richard holds that the parties in the dispute can truly disagree on whether a given person is rich, but can be both right, if we assume that they have different standards of wealth. Disputes over what is cool are, according to Richard, trickier, since they can give rise to cases of faultless disagreement in which the two parties disagree, and neither party is wrong, but neither party is right either! My fi rst goal in this paper will be to showthat the distinction between the two types of disagreement, as drawn by Richard, is not well motivated. I will also argue that if he were right about the stronger case (disagreement in which both parties are right), his own account would fail to capture it. He can capture either the idea that they truly disagree, or the idea that they are both right; but he cannot both have his cake and eat it, too.My second goal will be to bring to the foreground some constructive aspects of Richard’s proposal, and in particular the idea that such disagreements involve concepts whose application is not fully determined and whose usage is open to accommodation and negotiation (to use Lewis’s terms, as used by Richard). If we accept that on some occasions, whether a concept applies to a given instance or doesn’t is not yet settled, then arguably there are cases in which neither party is wrong—at least at the time of the dispute. I argue that their disagreement can be genuine only to the extent that it will eventually be settled whether the concept isto apply to a given instance or not, hence the way in which the concept gets shaped up and extended through its future uses makes it possible to determine, retrospectively, which of the two parties got it right. If this is correct, then the putative cases of faultless disagreement really turn upon the openness of the future: what makes them “faultless” is, simply, that there isn’t any matter of fact yet whether the one or the other party is right.
6. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 11 > Issue: 2
Mark Richard Reply to Lynch, Miščević, and Stojanović
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
This paper responds to discussions of my book When Truth Gives Out by Michael Lynch, Nenad Miščević, and Isidora Stojanović. Among the topics discussed are: whether relativism is incoherent (because it requires one to think that certain of one’s views are and are not epistemically superior to views one denies); whether and when sentences in which one slurs an individual or group are truth valued; whether relativism about matters of taste gives an account of “faultless disagreement” superior to certain “absolutist” accounts of the matter.
articles
7. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 11 > Issue: 2
David Davies Assessing Robinson’s “Revised Causal Argument” for Sense-Data
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Howard Robinson’s “revised causal argument” for the sense-datum theory of perception combines elements from two other arguments, the “original” causal argument and the argument from hallucination. Mark Johnston, however, has argued that, once the nature of the object of hallucinatory experience is properly addressed, the errors in hallucination-based arguments for conjunctivist views of perception like the sense-datum theory become apparent. I outline Robinson’s views and then consider the implications of Johnston’s challenge for the revised causal argument.
8. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 11 > Issue: 2
Julia Tanner The Argument from Marginal Cases: is Species a Relevant Difference
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Marginal humans are not rational yet we still think they are morally considerable. This is inconsistent with denying animals moral status on the basis of their irrationality. Therefore, either marginal humans and animals are both morally considerable or neither are. In this paper I consider a major objection to this argument: that species is a relevant difference between humans animals.
book discussion
9. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 11 > Issue: 2
Marko Jurjako Parfit’s Chellenges
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
In his long-awaited book On What Matters Parfit develops a normative theory that covers a whole range of normative concepts, from reasons and rationality to questions of moral progress and meaning of life. This paper focuses on Parfit*s view on reasons and rationality, and especially concentrates on three theses that are implicitly or explicitly endorsed by Parfit. The theses are: 1) the concept of a normative reason cannot be explicated in a non-circular way, 2) rationality of non-normative beliefs never influences the rationality of desires and actions, and 3) there are no desire-based reasons. The main aim of the paper is to critically evaluate the plausibility of the latter three theses.
book review
10. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 11 > Issue: 2
Elvio Baccarini Giustizia e conflitti di valori (Justice and Conflicts of Values): Una proposta procedurale (A Proceduralist Proposal)
view |  rights & permissions | cited by