Graduation Year

2009

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Granting Department

Philosophy

Major Professor

Kwasi Wiredu, Ph.D.

Co-Major Professor

Stephen Turner, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Alex Levine, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Richard Manning, Ph.D.

Keywords

assertion, propositions, natural language semantics, philosophy of language, epistemology

Abstract

I examine the difficulties that several philosophers of language are liable to encounter in their attempts to provide an account of the connection between truth and assertion. I then attempt to provide an account of this connection. The analysis is concerned chiefly with difficulties which consist in elucidating the conceptual connection between truth and assertion in a way that respects certain linguistic intuitions while at the same time rendering the concept of truth amenable to a semantic interpretation. The proposed view suggests one way in which we might go about meeting the theoretical demands implicit in addressing this concern, among others, demonstrating the extent to which a theory of truth should be regarded as belonging to the province of epistemology. Insofar as semantical considerations figure into such a theory, a more systematic investigation of the interface between epistemology and natural language semantics is recommended. The solution to many problems at this interface, I argue, lay in an analysis of judgment.

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