Intersubstitutivity principles and the generalization function of truth

Anil Gupta

Shawn Standefer

pp. 1065-1075

in: Joseph Ulatowski, Cory Wright (eds), Minimalism about truth, Synthese 195 (3), 2018.

Abstract

We offer a defense of one aspect of Paul Horwich’s response to the Liar paradox—more specifically, of his move to preserve classical logic. Horwich’s response requires that the full intersubstitutivity of ‘ ‘A’ is true’ and A be abandoned. It is thus open to the objection, due to Hartry Field, that it undermines the generalization function of truth. We defend Horwich’s move by isolating the grade of intersubstitutivity required by the generalization function and by providing a new reading of the biconditionals of the form “ ‘A’ is true iff A.”

Cited authors

Horwich Paul