Williamson, Timothy (2018) Supervaluationism and good reasoning. THEORIA. An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science, 33 (3). pp. 521-537. ISSN 2171-679X

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Abstract

This paper is a tribute to Delia Graff Fara. It extends her work on failures of meta-rules (conditional proof, RAA, contraposition, disjunction elimination) for validity as truth-preservation under a supervaluationist identification of truth with supertruth. She showed that such failures occur even in languages without special vagueness-related operators, for standards of deductive reasoning as materially rather than purely logically good, depending on a context-dependent background. This paper extends her argument to: quantifier meta-rules like existential elimination; ambiguity; deliberately vague standard mathematical notation. Supervaluationist attempts to qualify the meta-rules impose unreasonable cognitive demands on reasoning and underestimate her challenge.

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Item Type:	Published Article or Volume
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Williamson, Timothy timothy.williamson@philosophy.ox.ac.uk
Additional Information:	ISSN: 0495-4548 (print)
Keywords:	Delia Graff Fara, supervaluationism, supertruth, global validity, vagueness, sorites, ambiguity, meta-rule
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Mathematics > Logic Specific Sciences > Mathematics > Methodology General Issues > Structure of Theories
Depositing User:	Unnamed user with email theoria@ehu.es
Date Deposited:	13 Dec 2018 18:13
Last Modified:	13 Dec 2018 18:13
Item ID:	15447
Journal or Publication Title:	THEORIA. An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science
Publisher:	Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea / Universidad del País Vasco
Official URL:	http://www.ehu.eus/ojs/index.php/THEORIA/article/v...
DOI or Unique Handle:	10.1387/theoria.18490
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Mathematics > Logic Specific Sciences > Mathematics > Methodology General Issues > Structure of Theories
Date:	September 2018
Page Range:	pp. 521-537
Volume:	33
Number:	3
ISSN:	2171-679X
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/15447

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