Kevin Scharp
Research
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Published and Forthcoming Papers
“Aletheic
Vengeance,” forthcoming in a collection on revenge paradoxes edited
by JC Beall and published by Oxford University Press.
Abstract: One of the most frustrating and ubiquitous features
of approaches to the liar paradox is that they tend to give rise to new
paradoxes, which are called revenge paradoxes.
I argue that there are two distinct kinds of revenge paradoxes. Once one distinguishes between two kinds of
revenge paradoxes affecting theories of truth that offer an approach to the
liar paradox, one can argue that any theory of truth that offers an approach to
the liar paradox on which some basic inference rules governing truth are valid
is either inconsistent, self-refuting, or restricted to avoid a revenge
paradox. That is, there are no
revenge-immune theories of truth that validate these rules. Moreover, this fact can be used to justify
theories of truth on which truth is an inconsistent concept, where an
inconsistent concept has incompatible rules governing the way in which it
should be employed. I offer three
arguments for theories of truth that imply that truth is an inconsistent
concept, and I present an overview of the theory I endorse (which is not a version of dialetheism).
“Locke’s Theory of Reflection,” British
Journal for the History of Philosophy, forthcoming.
Abstract: Those concerned with Locke’s Essay have
largely ignored his account of reflection.
I present and defend an interpretation of Locke’s theory of reflection
on which reflection is not a variety of introspection; rather, for Locke, we
acquire ideas of our mental operations indirectly. Furthermore, reflection is involuntary and
distinct from consciousness. The
interpretation I present also explains reflection’s role in the acquisition of
non-sensory ideas (e.g., ideas of pleasure, existence, succession, etc.). I situate this reading within the secondary
literature on reflection and discuss its consequences for interpretations of
Locke’s views on empiricism, knowledge, and personal identity.
“Wilfrid Sellars’ Anti-Descriptivism,” in Categories
of Being: Essays on Metaphysics and Logic.
Edited by Heikki Koskinen, forthcoming.
Abstract: The work of Kripke, Putnam, Kaplan, and others
initiated a tradition in philosophy that has come to be known as anti-descriptivism. I argue that when properly interpreted,
Wilfrid Sellars is a staunch anti-descriptivist. Not only does he accept most of the
conclusions drawn by the more famous anti-descriptivists, he goes beyond their
critiques to reject the fundamental tenant of descriptivism—that understanding
a linguistic expression consists in mentally grasping its meaning and
associating that meaning with the expression.
I show that Sellars’ alternative accounts of language and the mind
provide novel justifications for the anti-descriptivists’ conclusions. Finally, I present what I take to be a Sellarsian
analysis of an important anti-descriptivist issue: the relation between
metaphysical modal notions (e.g., possibility) and epistemic modal notions
(e.g., conceivability). The account I
present involves extension of the strategy he uses to explain both the relation
between physical object concepts (e.g., whiteness) and sensation concepts
(e.g., the appearance of whiteness), and the relation between concepts that
apply to linguistic activity (e.g., sentential meaning) and those that apply to
conceptual activity (e.g., thought content).
“Scorekeeping in a Defective Language Game,” Pragmatics
and Cognition 13: 203-226, 2005 (a special issue devoted to Robert
Brandom’s Making It Explicit).
Abstract: One common criticism of deflationism is that
it does not have the resources to explain defective discourse (e.g., vagueness,
referential indeterminacy, confusion, etc.).
This problem is especially pressing for someone like Robert Brandom, who
not only endorses deflationist accounts of truth, reference, and predication,
but also refuses to use representational relations to explain content and
propositional attitudes. To address this
problem, I suggest that Brandom should explain defective discourse in terms of
what it is to treat some portion of discourse as defective. To illustrate this strategy, I present an
extension of his theory of content and use it to provide an explanation of
confusion. The result is a theory of
confusion based on Joseph Camp’s recent treatment. The extension of Brandom’s theory of content
involves additions to his account of scorekeeping that allow members of a
discursive practice to accept different standards of inferential correctness.
“Communication
and Content: Circumstances and Consequences of the Habermas-Brandom Debate,”
International Journal of Philosophical Studies 11: 43-61, 2003.
Abstract: The recent exchange between Robert Brandom and
Jürgen Habermas provides an opportunity to compare and contrast some
aspects of their systems. Both present broadly inferential accounts of meaning,
according to which the content of an expression is determined by its role in an
inferential network. Several problems confront such theories of meaning – one
of which threatens the possibility of communication because content is relative
to an individual’s set of beliefs. Brandom acknowledges this problem and
provides a solution to it. The point of this paper is to argue that it arises
for Habermas’s theory as well. I then present several solutions Habermas could
adopt and evaluate their feasibility. The result is that Habermas must alter
his theory of communicative action by contextualizing the standards for
successful communication.
Edited Collections
In the Space of
Reasons: Selected Writings of Wilfrid Sellars. Editor (with Robert Brandom) and author of the introduction,
Abstract: Wilfrid Sellars is widely regarded as a major figure in
twentieth century analytic philosophy.
However, most of his writings are scattered and difficult to find. This collection brings together sixteen of
Sellars’ most important and influential papers.
It promises to be the definitive collection of Sellars’ work.
Research Project on Truth
All of my current research
energy is going into a project on the nature of truth, the liar paradox, and
related paradoxes. These issues figured
prominently in my dissertation, and the papers listed below under Available Work in Progress are part of
this project. I am currently pulling
pieces out of my dissertation that serve as parts of this project. Below are links to a diagram of the project
as a whole (the nodes of the diagram take you to diagrams of those parts—not
all of them are functional right now), a brief description of the project, an
overview of the dissertation, and the dissertation itself. I feel obligated to say that I no longer
accept some of the details as they are presented in the dissertation.
Brief Description of
Truth Project
Dissertation:
“Truth and Aletheic Paradox,”
Abstract: My
objective is to provide a theory of truth that is both independently motivated
and compatible with the requirement that semantic theories for truth should not
demand a substantive distinction between the languages in which they are
formulated and those to which they apply.
I argue that if a semantic theory for truth does not satisfy this
requirement, then it is unacceptable. The
central claim of the theory I develop is that truth is an inconsistent concept:
the rules for the proper use of truth are incompatible in the sense that they
dictate that truth both applies and fails to apply to certain sentences (e.g.,
those that give rise to the liar and related paradoxes). The most significant challenge for a
proponent of an inconsistency theory of truth is producing a plausible theory
of inconsistent concepts. On the account
I provide, inconsistent concepts are confused concepts. A concept is confused if, in employing it, one
is committed to applying it to two or more distinct types of entities without
properly distinguishing between them; that is, an employer of a confused
concept thinks that two or more distinct entities are identical. I propose a semantic theory for predicates
that express confused concepts, and a new many-valued relevance logic on which
the semantic theory depends. This
semantic theory serves as the basis for my theory of inconsistent
concepts. Given this account of
inconsistent concepts and my claim that truth is inconsistent, I am committed
to the view that truth is confused. I
use the semantic theory for confused predicates as a semantic theory for truth. On the account I advance, a proper theory of
truth requires a distinction between several different types of truth
predicates. I propose an account of each
truth predicate, and I advocate using them as consistent replacements for the
concept of truth. The result is a team
of concepts that does the work of the inconsistent concept of truth without
giving rise to paradoxes.
Available Work In Progress
“Fragmentary
Theories of Truth.”
(26,000 words)
Abstract: Some theories of truth explain natural
language truth predicates in terms of a group of restricted truth predicates;
the extension of each restricted truth predicate is a proper subset of the
extension of ‘true’. I call these fragmentary
theories of truth. Examples
of fragmentary theories of truth are Tarski’s theory, the disquotational
version of deflationism, and most approaches to the liar paradox, including
fixed-point theories, revision theories, and contextual theories. I argue that many fragmentary theories of
truth are inconsistent with our intuitions about which assertions of truth
attributions are warranted. Because
these theories purport to describe the way language users actually use truth
predicates, their failure to respect our intuitions on warranted assertibility
renders them unacceptable.
Diagram of “Fragmentary Theories of
Truth”
“Truth and Internalizability.” (37,000 words)
Abstract: The vast majority of approaches to the liar
paradox generate additional paradoxes (often called revenge paradoxes). To avoid revenge paradoxes, these approaches
appeal to semantic theories for truth that are restricted from applying to
certain languages; usually, the very languages in which the theories are
expressed are excluded from their scope.
Although some philosophers claim that these theories are unacceptable,
this objection has yet to receive a sufficiently precise formulation or an
adequate justification. My goal is to
provide a precise characterization of several conditions on semantic theories
for truth and detailed arguments for them; these conditions rule out semantic
theories for truth that are restricted from applying to certain languages. To this end, I introduce the notion of
internalizability: a semantic theory is internalizable for a language if
and only if there exists an extension of the language such that (i) the theory
is expressible in that extended language, and (ii) the theory assigns meanings
to all the relevant sentences of that extended language. I argue that a semantic theory for a concept
X should be internalizable for every language that expresses X. Furthermore, I argue that a semantic theory
for truth that applies to a natural language should be internalizable for that
language. Of course, any theory that
satisfies the first requirement satisfies the second. However, providing a separate defense enables
one to handle the objection that even if a semantic theory for truth is not
internalizable for every language, it can still provide a semantic description
of a natural language. Very few, if any,
popular semantic theories for truth are internalizable for natural languages;
hence, the internalizability requirements serve as powerful criticisms of most
approaches to the liar paradox. In
addition, there are good reasons to think that the only approaches to the liar
paradox that satisfy the internalizability requirements are those that imply
that truth is an inconsistent concept.
Thus, the internalizability requirements serve to undermine most
accounts of the nature of truth (e.g., correspondence theories, coherence
theories, epistemic theories, deflationist theories, minimalist theories, etc.)
as well.
Diagram of “Truth and
Internalizability”
“A
Primer on Inconsistent Concepts,” to be integrated into other work. (6,900
words)
Abstract: This paper is designed to introduce the reader
to inconsistent concepts; topics include the nature of inconsistent concepts,
relations between them and other kinds of concepts, empirically inconsistent
concepts, concept possession vs. concept employment, and policies for handling
inconsistent concepts.
“Theories of Inconsistent Concepts.” (17,000 words)
Abstract: According to most philosophers who address
them, a concept is inconsistent if
and only if its constitutive principles are incompatible. I discuss the nature of inconsistent
concepts, propose four conditions on theories of inconsistent concepts, and
consider nine theories of inconsistent concepts: (i) the context-dependence
theory, (ii) the indirect context-dependence theory, (iii) the ambiguity
theory, (iv) Hartry Field’s theory, (v) Matti Eklund’s theory, (vi) Stephen
Yablo’s theory, (vii) the dialetheic theory, (viii) Anil Gupta’s theory, and
(ix) the theory I endorse, which explains inconsistent concepts in terms of
confused concepts. I conclude that only
the confusion-based theory satisfies all the conditions on an acceptable theory
of inconsistent concepts.
“The Expressive Role of Truth
and Partiality Approaches to the Liar Paradox.” (4,400 words)
Abstract: I argue that if a theory of truth is
acceptable, then it must accommodate the fact that truth predicates perform a
crucial expressive role in our natural languages. I argue that partiality approaches to the
liar paradox (i.e., theories of truth on which truth is partially defined and
liar sentences are truth-value gaps) imply that: (i) some intuitively warranted
assertions of sentences containing truth predicates are unwarranted, and (ii)
some intuitively acceptable sentences containing truth predicates are
unacceptable. Moreover, that the
assertions in question are warranted and that the sentences in question are
acceptable are necessary conditions for truth to play its expressive role. Therefore, partiality approaches to the liar
paradox cannot accommodate truth’s expressive role in natural language.
“The Aletheic Problem.” (17,000 words)
Abstract: One of the major obstacles to arriving at an
adequate approach to the liar paradox is understanding the threat it
poses. I discuss three ways of
understanding the threat and the impact they have on approaches to the liar. Probably the most common formulation of the
problem is that the liar paradox shows us that we need to either reject one of
the assumptions involved or one of the inference rules involved in the
derivation of the paradox. I argue that
this naïve formulation of the problem does not capture the depth of the threat
posed by the liar. The second
formulation has its source in some writings by Quine and by