The construction of logical space and the structure of facts

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2 Scopus citations

Abstract

In The Construction of Logical Space, Agustín Rayo defends trivialism, according to which number-involving truths are trivially equivalent to other, non-number-involving truths; picturesquely, ‘I have five fingers on my hand’ and ‘the number of fingers on my hand is five’ express the same fact, but carved up in different ways. A single fact thus has multiple structures. I distinguish two ways this might go: on the deflationary picture, facts get their structures from our linguistic practices, while on an inflationary picture, facts have multiple structures independently of language. I argue that Rayo’s view is best interpreted as deflationary. Thus interpreted, it blocks off an attractive solution to the old problems of intensionality. I further argue a that a semi-deflationary variant of Rayo’s view can make use of the attractive solution—but it thereby sacrifices the supposed mathematical benefits of trivialism.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)2609-2616
Number of pages8
JournalPhilosophical Studies
Volume172
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 7 2015
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Acts
  • Language
  • Neo-fregeanism
  • Nominalism
  • Stipulation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Philosophy

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