Stable and Unstable Theories of Truth and Syntax
Beau Madison Mount, Daniel Waxman
Abstract
Abstract Recent work on formal theories of truth has revived an approach, due originally to Tarski, on which syntax and truth theories are sharply distinguished—‘disentangled’—from mathematical base theories. In this paper, we defend a novel philosophical constraint on disentangled theories. We argue that these theories must be epistemically stable: they must possess an intrinsic motivation justifying no strictly stronger theory. In a disentangled setting, even if the base and the syntax theory are individually stable, they may be jointly unstable. We contend that this flaw afflicts many proposals discussed in the literature; we defend a new, stable disentangled theory, double second-order arithmetic.
Topics & Concepts
SyntaxConstraint (computer-aided design)EpistemologyTruth valueBase (topology)PhilosophyComputer scienceMathematical economicsMathematicsLinguisticsMathematical analysisGeometryComputability, Logic, AI AlgorithmsPhilosophy and Theoretical ScienceEpistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics