Articles

Routledge Handbook of Social Epistemology (2019)

Abstract
What is the epistemically rational response in the face of mutually recognised disagreement? Why should we think that disagreement is of philosophical significance? One reason is that disagreement functions as a sort of litmus paper for detecting the presence of error. The exact nature and significance of this error need to be scrutinised. To that end, we offer a critical survey of the most discussed accounts of epistemic peer disagreement and we sketch an alternative approach in line with a pluralist understanding of epistemic rationality.

Keywords
Disagreement • Rationality • Justification • Peerage

Synthese (2018)
Vol. 195: 1103–1125

Abstract
It is usually contended that Horwich’s minimalism cannot account for the value of truth. I first provide some clarifications of what we mean exactly when we say that truth is valuable. To this end, I elaborate a framework within which to conduct investigations into the value of truth. With reference to the exchange between Horwich and Lynch on the issue, I discuss the link between questions concerning the explanatory role of truth and the issue of its metaphysical inflation. I conclude by briefly exploring a few strategies on behalf of minimalists to address the axiological challenge.

Keywords
Truth • Minimalism • Axiology

Pluralisms in Truth and Logic – Palgrave (2018)

Abstract
Some have argued that truth is a norm of judgement. This thesis has been given in a variety of formulations. I will assume that truth functions as a norm of judgement for then focusing on two core questions concerning the judgement-truth norm—namely: (i) what are the normative relationships between truth and judgement? (ii) Do these relationships vary or are they constant? I argue for a pluralist picture—normative alethic pluralism—according to which (i) there is more than one correct judgement-truth norm and (ii) the normative relationships between truth and judgement vary in relation to the subject matter of the judgement.

Keywords
Truth • Pluralism • Normativity • Disagreement

Mind (2017)
Vol. 126 (503): 911–936

Abstract
The impetus to relativism in the area of taste, we suggest, is a resolution of the forces exerted by three ingredient assumptions: a truth-conditional conception of the content of the claims put forward in the kind of prima facie disagreement illustrated; an acceptance that such a prima facie disagreement is a genuine one; and a rejection of the idea that the world bestows determinate truth-values on the contents thereby in dispute. Expressivism drops the first assumption; contextualism the second; naïve realism the third. But relativism allows us to accept all three. With reference to “Relativism and Monadic Truth” by Cappelen & Hawthorne, we critically assess truth relativism and suggest a novel minimalist proposal of judgements about taste which promises to fare better than the alternatives.

Keywords
Truth • Relativism • Contextualism • Disagreement

Inquiry (2017)

Abstract
Beall and Restall (2006) argues that there is a plurality of logical consequence relations each of which yields a different logic. We are interested in understanding the consequences of endorsing Beall and Restall’s logical pluralism vis-à-vis the normative guidance that logic is taken to provide to reasoning. We will interpret Beall and Restall’s pluralism as a thesis of semantic indeterminacy of our concept of logical consequence. We then elaborate and critically scrutinise three models of semantic indeterminacy. We conclude by arguing that Beall and Restall’s indeterminate logical pluralism cannot offer an adequate account of the normative guidance that logic is taken to provide us with in ordinary contexts of reasoning.

Keywords
Logical pluralism • Logical Consequence • Normativity • Indeterminacy • Vagueness

The Philosophical Quarterly
Vol. 66 (264): 516-535

Abstract
I present a novel strategy to account for two thoughts concerning disagreements about taste: (i) that they need not involve any substantive fault (faultlessness); and (ii) that the faultlessness of a contrary opinion can be coherently appreciated from within a committed perspective (parity). I distinguish between different ways in which truth governs judgement to substantiate the thesis that truth’s normative function varies according to the subject matter at issue. I then argue that truth’s normative guidance in the domain of taste is characteristically weak. I introduce an intuitive distinction between basic and refined taste, and show how this distinction affects questions of faultlessness and parity by means of the idea of alethic suberogation.

Keywords
Truth • Disagreement • Taste • Normativity • Faultlessness • Relativism

Analysis
76 (4): 516-527

Abstract
This paper offers a critical discussion of some of the themes at the core of John MacFarlane’s “Assessment Sensitivity”. Among other things, I challenge especially MacFarlane’s understanding of the phenomenon of retraction, his treatment of disagreement as preclusion of joint accuracy in the domain of basic taste, and the general normative setup of assessment relativism.

Keywords
Relativism • Disagreement • Retraction • Normativity

Argumenta (2016)
Vol. 2, 1: 77-94

Abstract
Boghossian and Richard have argued that truth relativism cannot account for the possibility of faultless disagreement. I will contend that the objections they moved against relativism do not target its ability to account for the possibility of faultless disagreement but rather its capacity to account for another aspect of disagreement in certain areas of discourse—what Wright has dubbed parity. I will then argue that once Boghossian and Richard’s arguments are properly understood as targeting parity they are successful. I conclude by offering a diagnosis of what is at the heart of the relativist inability to account for parity—namely its assumption of a monistic conception of the normativity of truth.

Keywords
Truth • Relativism • Faultless Disagreement • Parity • Normative Pluralism

Blackwell Companion to Naturalism
Chapter 18: 246-261

Abstract
We address the issue of whether truth is a natural phenomenon. We focus primarily on the kinds of theory of truth that occupy the central positions in current debates about truth, namely correspondence theories, deflationary theories, epistemic theories, and pluralist theories, and aim to discern the extent to which truth is a natural property on each view. We will close by making some brief remarks on how the possible normativity of truth bears on the question of whether truth is a natural property.

Keywords
Truth • Naturalism • Armstrong • Lewis • Normativity

New Frontiers in Truth – Cambridge
Chapter 5: 80-102

Abstract
We provide a novel and substantive analysis of the phenomenon of retraction, at the core of MacFarlane’s assessment relativism. Such analysis, we claim, has the virtue of making clear what the normative peculiarity of the notion of retraction is—namely, its retroactive efficacy. We then discuss the kind of “fault” in which retractors are said to deem their former selves as not being at fault when making the retracted assertion. In this connection, we highlight an asymmetry between retractions involving predicates of personal taste and moral terms.

Keywords
Relativism • Disagreement • Retraction • Normativity

University of Aberdeen (2014)

Abstract
This thesis engages with three topics and the relationships between them: (i) the phenomenon of disagreement (paradigmatically, where one person makes a claim and another denies it); (ii) the normative character of disagreements (the issue of whether, and in what sense, one of the parties is “at fault” for believing something that’s untrue); (iii) the issue of which theory of what truth is can best accommodate the norms relating belief and truth. I develop and defend a novel pluralist picture of the normative role of truth in enquiry and I show how truth’s variable normative function can be integrated within a minimalist account of the nature of truth.

Keywords
Disagreement • Truth • Normativity • Relativism • Minimalism

Disputatio (2010)
Vol. 3 (28): 334-343

Abstract
This is a critical review of “Relative Truth”, a collection of essays on relativism about truth edited by Manuel García-Carpintero and Max Kölbel, and published by Oxford University Press.

Keywords
Truth • Relativism • Semantics • Disagreement