Dear all, This week's Serious Metaphysics Group meeting will be on Wednesday 13th November, at 5.30 - 7.00pm in the philosophy board room. Our speaker is Dan Brigham, who will give a talk entitled "Elusive Facts and Identity Theories of Truth" - abstract below. Shyane Siriwardena has very kindly agreed to chair the meeting this week as I am unable to attend.
Best wishes, Matthew Simpson Dan Brigham: Elusive Facts and Identity Theories of Truth "According to identity theorists of truth such as John McDowell (1994, 1999, 2005) and Jennifer Hornsby (1997, 1999), anything truly thinkable is a fact: when one thinks truly that spring has begun, what one thinks - that spring has begun - just is what is the case. But McDowell and Hornsby fail to sharply distinguish the identity theory of truth from what we might call `the identity theory of facts', the claim that every fact is truly thinkable. I distinguish two versions of this latter claim, show that the strong version is false and argue that the weak version is unacceptable. I then discuss why McDowell and Hornsby got themselves into this position and whether they can extract themselves from it. I close by recommending the adoption of a "Tractarian", rather than "Fregean", identity theory." -- Matthew Simpson PhD Student in Philosophy University of Cambridge Mail: Robinson College, Cambridge, CB3 9AN _____________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from the CamPhilEvents mailing list, or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents List archive: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEventsArchive
