Overview

In 1945 Alonzo Church issued a pair of referee reports in which he anonymously conveyed to Frederic Fitch a surprising proof showing that wherever there is (empirical) ignorance there is also logically unknowable truth. Fitch published this and a generalization of the result in 1963. Ever since, philosophers have been attempting to understand the significance and address the counter-intuitiveness of this, the so-called paradox of knowability. This collection assembles Church's referee reports, Fitch's 1963 paper, and nineteen new papers on the knowability paradox. The contributors include logicians and philosophers from three continents, many of whom have already made important contributions to the discussion of the problem. The volume contains a general introduction to the paradox and the background literature, and is divided into seven sections that roughly mark the central points of debate. The sections include the history of the paradox, Michael Dummett's constructivism, issues of paraconsistency, developments of modal and temporal logics, Cartesian restricted theories of truth, modal and mathematical fictionalism, and reconsiderations about how, and whether, we ought to construe an anti-realist theory of truth.

Full Product Details

Author:   Joe Salerno (Australian National University and Saint Louis University)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 16.50cm , Height: 2.80cm , Length: 24.10cm
Weight:   0.759kg
ISBN:  

9780199285495

ISBN 10:   0199285497
Pages:   392
Publication Date:   04 June 2009
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Joe Salerno: Introduction I. Early History 1: Alonzo Church: Referee Reports on Fitch's A Definition of Value 2: Frederic Fitch: A Logical Analysis of Some Value Concepts 3: Joe Salerno: Knowability Noir: 1945-1963 II. Dummett's Constructivism 4: Michael Dummett: Fitch's Paradox of Knowability 5: Stig Rasmussen: The Paradox of Knowability and the Mapping Objection 6: Jose Luis Bermudez: Truth, Indefinite Extensibility, and Fitch's Paradox III. Paraconsistency and Paracompleteness 7: Graham Priest: Beyond the Limits of Knowledge 8: JC Beall: Knowability and Possible Epistemic Oddities IV. Epistemic and Temporal Operators: Actions, Times and Types 9: Johan van Benthem: Actions That Make us Know 10: John Burgess: Can Truth Out? 11: Bernard Linsky: Logical Types in Arguments about Knowability and Belief V. Cartesian Restricted Truth 12: Timothy Williamson: Tennant's Troubles 13: Jonathan L. Kvanvig: Restriction Strategies for Knowability: Some Lessons in False Hope 14: Neil Tennant: Revamping the Restriction Strategy VI. Modal and Mathematical Fictions 15: Berit Brogaard: On Keeping Blue Swans and Unknowable Facts at Bay: a Case Study on Fitch's Paradox 16: Otavio Bueno: Fitch's Paradox and the Philosophy of Mathematics VII. Knowability Reconsidered 17: Michael Hand: Performance and Paradox 18: C.S. Jenkins: The Mystery of the Disappearing Diamond 19: W. D. Hart: Invincible Ignorance 20: Christoph Kelp and Duncan Pritchard: Two Deflationary Approaches to Fitch-Style Reasoning 21: Greg Restall: Not Every Truth Can Be Known (at least, not all at once)

Reviews

<br> An excellent overview of the philosophical terrain that surrounds this thoroughly modern paradox. For those working at the intersections of epistemology, modality, and metaphysics, there is no better introduction to this profitable issue. --Philosophical Reviews<br>

An excellent overview of the philosophical terrain that surrounds this thoroughly modern paradox. For those working at the intersections of epistemology, modality, and metaphysics, there is no better introduction to this profitable issue. * Philosophical Reviews *

<br> An excellent overview of the philosophical terrain that surrounds this thoroughly modern paradox. For those working at the intersections of epistemology, modality, and metaphysics, there is no better introduction to this profitable issue. --Philosophical Reviews<p><br>

Author Information

Joe Salerno received his Ph.D. from the Ohio State University in 1999. He is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at Australian National University, and Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University. He writes in epistemology and the philosophy of logic

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