From relative truth to finean non-factualism

Alexander Jackson

pp. 971-989

in: Thomas Ågotnes, Giacomo Bonanno, Wiebe van der Hoek (eds), Logic and the foundations of game and decision theory, Synthese 193 (3), 2016.

Abstract

This paper compares two ‘relativist’ theories about deliciousness: truth-relativism, and Kit Fine’s non-factualism about a subject-matter. Contemporary truth-relativism is presented as a linguistic thesis; its metaphysical underpinning is often neglected. I distinguish three views about the obtaining of worldly states of affairs concerning deliciousness, and argue that none yields a satisfactory version of truth-relativism. Finean non-factualism about deliciousness is not subject to the problems with truth-relativism. I conclude that Finean non-factualism is the better relativist theory. As I explain, non-facualism about deliciousness is happily combined with an invariantist semantics for the word “delicious”. On this approach, relativism is a matter for a metaphysical theory, not a linguistic one.

Cited authors

Fine Kit