Problemy minimalizmu
Problems of Minimalism

Summary/Abstract: According to Paul Horwich, all the facts about truth can be explained on the basis of the so-called “minimal theory” (MT), whose axioms are purely disquotational: all of them are substitutions of Tarski’s schema “»p« is true if and only if p”. It has been observed that Horwich’s MT is too weak to prove generalizations like “For every φ, the negation of φ is true iff φ is not true”. Since MT does not prove such principles, one might ask how it helps us to arrive at them. In the paper an answer to this question is proposed. We introduce an epistemic notion of believability, characterized by means of a few simple axioms. We then show how to derive the believability of relevant general statements about truth from the basic axiomatic characterization of the believability predicate together with the information that something like Horwichian MT is a theory of truth accepted by us.

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