•  467
    Truth without contra(di)ction
    Review of Symbolic Logic 4 (4): 498-535. 2011.
    The concept of truth arguably plays a central role in many areas of philosophical theorizing. Yet, what seems to be one of the most fundamental principles governing that concept, i.e. the equivalence between P and , is inconsistent in full classical logic, as shown by the semantic paradoxes. I propose a new solution to those paradoxes, based on a principled revision of classical logic. Technically, the key idea consists in the rejection of the unrestricted validity of the structural principle of…Read more
  •  218
    Higher-Order Sorites Paradox
    Journal of Philosophical Logic 42 (1): 25-48. 2013.
    The naive theory of vagueness holds that the vagueness of an expression consists in its failure to draw a sharp boundary between positive and negative cases. The naive theory is contrasted with the nowadays dominant approach to vagueness, holding that the vagueness of an expression consists in its presenting borderline cases of application. The two approaches are briefly compared in their respective explanations of a paramount phenomenon of vagueness: our ignorance of any sharp boundary between …Read more
  •  177
    Truth and what is said
    Philosophical Perspectives 22 (1): 545-574. 2008.
    A notion of truth as applicable to events of assertoric use ( utterances ) of a sentence token is arguably presupposed and required by our evaluative practices of the use of language. The truth of an utterance seems clearly to depend on what the utterance says . This fundamental dependence seems in turn to be captured by the schema that, if an utterance u says that P , then u is true iff P . Such a schema may thus be thought to constitute a suitable basis for an adequate theory of utterance trut…Read more
  •  177
    Knowledge-How, True Indexical Belief, and Action
    Philosophical Studies 164 (2): 341-355. 2013.
    Intellectualism is the doctrine that knowing how to do something consists in knowing that something is the case. Drawing on contemporary linguistic theories of indirect questions, Jason Stanley and Timothy Williamson have recently revived intellectualism, proposing to interpret a sentence of the form ‘s knows how to F’ as ascribing to s knowledge of a certain way w of Fing that she can F in w. In order to preserve knowledgehow’s connection to action and thus avoid an overgeneration problem, they…Read more
  •  143
    A model of tolerance
    Studia Logica 90 (3): 337-368. 2008.
    According to the naive theory of vagueness, the vagueness of an expression consists in the existence of both positive and negative cases of application of the expression and in the non- existence of a sharp cut-off point between them. The sorites paradox shows the naive theory to be inconsistent in most logics proposed for a vague language. The paper explores the prospects of saving the naive theory by revising the logic in a novel way, placing principled restrictions on the transitivity of the …Read more
  •  137
    No-no. Paradox and consistency
    with Dan López de Sa
    Analysis 71 (3). 2011.
  •  134
    Luminosity and determinacy
    Philosophical Studies 165 (3): 765-786. 2013.
    The paper discusses some ways in which the phenomenon of borderline cases may be thought to bear on the traditional philosophical idea that certain domains of facts are fully open to our view. The discussion focusses on a very influential argument (due to Tim Williamson) to the effect that, roughly, no such domains of luminous facts exist. Many commentators have felt that the vagueness unavoidably inherent in the description of the facts that are best candidates for being luminous plays an illic…Read more
  •  134
    Knowing how to establish intellectualism
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 77 (1): 217-261. 2008.
    In this paper, we present a number of problems for intellectualism about knowledge-how, and in particular for the version of the view developed by Stanley & Williamson 2001. Their argument draws on the alleged uniformity of 'know how'-and 'know wh'-ascriptions. We offer a series of considerations to the effect that this assimilation is problematic. Firstly, in contrast to 'know wh'-ascriptions, 'know how'-ascriptions with known negative answers are false. Secondly, knowledge-how obeys closure pr…Read more
  •  126
    Naive Modus Ponens
    Journal of Philosophical Logic 42 (4): 575-593. 2013.
    The paper is concerned with a logical difficulty which Lionel Shapiro’s deflationist theory of logical consequence (as well as the author’s favoured, non-deflationist theory) gives rise to. It is argued that Shapiro’s non-contractive approach to solving the difficulty, although correct in its broad outlines, is nevertheless extremely problematic in some of its specifics, in particular in its failure to validate certain intuitive rules and laws associated with the principle of modus ponens. An al…Read more
  •  120
    Analysis 67, 242–50 (2007)
  •  119
    Luminosity and vagueness
    Dialectica 66 (3): 375-410. 2012.
    The paper discusses some ways in which vagueness and its phenomena may be thought to impose certain limits on our knowledge and, more specifically, may be thought to bear on the traditional philosophical idea that certain domains of facts are luminous, i.e., roughly, fully open to our view. The discussion focuses on a very influential argument to the effect that almost no such interesting domains exist. Many commentators have felt that the vagueness unavoidably inherent in the description of the…Read more
  •  119
    Reponse to Peter Milne (2005)'s argument agaist maximalism about truthmaking.
  •  115
    According to the dominant approach in the theory of vagueness, the nature of the vagueness of an expression ‘F’ consists in its presenting borderline cases in an appropriately ordered series: objects which are neither definitely F nor definitely not F (where the notion of definiteness can be semantic, ontic, epistemic, psychological or primitive). In view of the various problems faced by theories of vagueness adopting the dominant approach, the thesis proposes to reconsider the naive theory of v…Read more
  •  102
    Scepticism and Perceptual Justification (edited book)
    with Dylan Dodd
    Oxford University Press. 2013.
    How can experience provide knowledge, or even justified belief, about the objective world outside our minds? This volume presents original essays by prominent contemporary epistemologists, who show how philosophical progress on foundational issues can improve our understanding of, and suggest a solution to, this famous sceptical question.
  •  101
    Squeezing and stretching: How vagueness can outrun borderlineness
    Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 106 (3). 2006.
    The paper develops a critical dialectic with respect to the nowadays dominant approach in the theory of vagueness, an approach whose main tenet is that it is in the nature of the vagueness of an expression to present borderline cases of application, conceived of as enjoying some kind of distinctive normative status. Borderlineness is used to explain the basic phenomena of vagueness, such as, for example, our ignorance of the location of cut-offs in a soritical series. Every particular theory of …Read more
  •  90
    A new semantic paradox developed by Richard Heck and relying on very minimal logical and truth-theoretic resources is rehearsed. A theory of truth restricting the structural metarule of contraction is presented and some of the theory's relevant features are made explicit. It is then shown how the theory provides a principled solution to the paradox while preserving the extremely compelling truth-theoretic principles at stake, thus bringing out a significant advantage that the theory enjoys over …Read more
  •  84
    The Opacity of Truth
    Topoi 34 (1): 37-54. 2015.
    The paper offers a critical examination of a prominent, “quasi-deflationist” argument advanced in the contemporary debate on the semantic paradoxes against non-naive and non-transparent theories of truth. The argument claims that truth unrestrictedly fulfils certain expressive functions, and that its so doing requires the unrestricted validity of naivety and transparency principles. The paper criticises the quasi-deflationist argument by considering some kinds of cases in which transparency and …Read more
  •  83
    K ⊈ E
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94 (3): 540-557. 2017.
    In a series of very influential works, Tim Williamson has advanced and defended a much discussed theory of evidence containing, among other claims, the thesis that, if one knows P, P is part of one's evidence. I argue that K ⊆ E is false, and indeed that it is so for a reason that Williamson himself essentially provides in arguing against the thesis that, if one has a justified true belief in P, P is part of one's evidence: together with a very plausible principle governing the acquisition of kn…Read more
  •  78
    Unifying the Philosophy of Truth (edited book)
    with T. Achourioti, H. Galinon, J. Martínez Fernández, and K. Fujimoto
    Imprint: Springer. 2015.
    This anthology of the very latest research on truth features the work of recognized luminaries in the field, put together following a rigorous refereeing process. Along with an introduction outlining the central issues in the field, it provides a unique and unrivaled view of contemporary work on the nature of truth, with papers selected from key conferences in 2011 such as Truth Be Told (Amsterdam), Truth at Work (Paris), Paradoxes of Truth and Denotation (Barcelona) and Axiomatic Theories of Tr…Read more
  •  74
    After providing some historical and systematic background, I introduce the structure of a very natural and influential sceptical underdetermination argument. The argument assumes that it is metaphysically possible for a deceived subject to have the same evidence that a non-deceived subject has, and tries to draw consequences about justification from that assumption of metaphysical possibility. I first variously object to the transition from the assumption to its supposed consequences. In the cen…Read more
  •  74
    Instability and Contraction: Méditations hégéliennes I
    Journal of Philosophical Logic 48 (1): 155-188. 2019.
    In other works, I’ve proposed a solution to the semantic paradoxes which, at the technical level, basically relies on failure of contraction. I’ve also suggested that, at the philosophical level, contraction fails because of the instability of certain states of affairs. In this paper, I try to make good on that suggestion.
  •  73
    Some apparently valid arguments crucially rely on context change. To take a kind of example first discussed by Frege, ‘Tomorrow, it’ll be sunny’ taken on a day seems to entail ‘Today, it’s sunny’ taken on the next day, but the first sentence taken on a day sadly does not seem to entail the second sentence taken on the second next day. Mid-argument context change has not been accounted for by the tradition that has extensively studied the distinctive logical properties of context-dependent langua…Read more
  •  72
    Naive truth and naive logical properties
    Review of Symbolic Logic 7 (2): 351-384. 2014.
    A unified answer is offered to two distinct fundamental questions: whether a nonclassical solution to the semantic paradoxes should be extended to other apparently similar paradoxes and whether a nonclassical logic should be expressed in a nonclassical metalanguage. The paper starts by reviewing a budget of paradoxes involving the logical properties of validity, inconsistency, and compatibility. The author’s favored substructural approach to naive truth is then presented and it is explained how …Read more
  •  70
    Truth, Demonstration and Knowledge
    Theoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 30 (3): 365-392. 2015.
    After introducing semantic anti-realism and the paradox of knowability, the paper offers a reconstruction of the anti-realist argument from understanding. The proposed reconstruction validates an unrestricted principle to the effect that truth requires the existence of a certain kind of “demonstration”. The paper shows that that principle fails to imply the problematic instances of the original unrestricted feasible-knowability principle but that the overall view underlying the new principle sti…Read more
  •  69
    Naive Logical Properties and Structural Properties
    Journal of Philosophy 110 (11): 633-644. 2013.
  •  51
    Closed without boundaries
    Synthese 199 (Suppl 3): 641-679. 2020.
    The paper critically discusses two prominent arguments against closure principles for knowledge. The first one is the “argument from aggregation”, claiming that closure under conjunction has the consequence that, if one individually knows i premises, one also knows their i-fold conjunction—yet, every one of the premises might exhibit interesting positive epistemic properties while the i-fold conjunction might fail to do so. The second one is the “argument from concatenation”, claiming that closu…Read more
  •  49
    Vagueness and Thought, by Andrew Bacon
    Mind 131 (524): 1375-1386. 2022.
    It’s difficult nowadays to write an interesting new book on vagueness, but Andrew Bacon has succeeded. He hasn’t done so by putting forth revolutionary views ab.
  •  48
    Restriction by Noncontraction
    Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 57 (2): 287-327. 2016.
    This paper investigates how naive theories of truth fare with respect to a set of extremely plausible principles of restricted quantification. It is first shown that both nonsubstructural theories as well as certain substructural theories cannot validate all those principles. Then, pursuing further an approach to the semantic paradoxes that the author has defended elsewhere, the theory of restricted quantification available in a specific naive theory that rejects the structural property of contr…Read more
  •  46
    Knowledge-How, True Indexical Belief, and Action
    Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 39 291-299. 2008.
    Intellectualism is the doctrine that knowing how to do something consists in knowing that something is the case. Drawing on contemporary linguistic theories of indirect questions, Jason Stanley and Timothy Williamson have recently revived intellectualism, proposing to interpret a sentence of the form ‘s knows how to F’ as ascribing to s knowledge of a certain way w of Fing that she can F in w. In order to preserve knowledgehow’s connection to action and thus avoid an overgeneration problem, they…Read more