The Taming of the True

by Neil Tennant

Overview

The Taming of the True defends and develops global semantic anti-realism. Neil Tennant argues compellingly that every truth is knowable, and that manifestationism in the theory of meaning entails logical reform. He extends semantic anti-realism to empirical discourse, developing new accounts of the analytic/synthetic distinction, cognitive significance and constructive falsifiability. The book has important consequences for the philosophy of mathematics and logic, the theory of meaning, metaphysics, and epistemology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198237174
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	07/28/1997
Pages:	488
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.50(h) x 1.18(d)

About the Author

Neil Tennant is Professor of Philosophy and Adjunct Professor of Cognitive Science at Ohio State University. He previously held chairs at the University of Stirling, Scotland, and at the Australian National University. He has held visiting professorships or fellowships at Munich, Cambridge, Michigan, Pittsburgh, and Dartmouth College.

Table of Contents

1:. Introduction
2:. The Realism Debate
3:. Irrealism
4:. Against Meaning Skepticism
5:. Avoiding Strict Finitism
6:. Meaning as Graspable
7:. Truth as Knowable
8:. Analyticity and Syntheticity
9:. Finding the Right Logic
10:. Cognitive Significance Regained
11:. Defeasibility and Constructive Falsifiability

Editorial Reviews

"This is an extremely ambitious book. The list of topics it addresses is a selection of major philosophical controversies of the twentieth century: the nature of realism, skepticism, the relations between knowledge, truth and understanding, the status of classical logic, the analytic/synthetic distinction, and the empiricist criterion of cognitive significance. on each of these topics, Tennant offers a number of valuable insights, and the book as a whole is a fine example of clarity and rigor in philosophy." —The Philosophical Review

"[Tennant's} book addresses a number of important issues in contemporary philosophy, and the reader has much to gain from a careful study of the development. Few stones are left unturned...this rich study...presents a delightful and compelling holistic argument against 'Kripke's meanining-sceptic'...'a new, improved version' of the manifestation argument, and 'provides a revival of the positivist notion of "cognitive significance"'. The author provides a rigorous criterion aimed at demarcating 'the empirically meaningful from the metaphysically meaningless'. He shows that his distinction avoids the now-standard refutations of the notion of cognitive significance."—Mathematical Reviews

"This is a new major and systematic monograph on the realism debate, written by a very skilful and sophisticated defender of anti-realism...Tennant attempts to show that [intuitionistic relevant] logic has much wider application than one might suppose. It suffices not only for mathematics but also adequately captures the basic inferential practices of empirical sciences. It would be hard to overestimate the significance of that attempt...Tennant's views...put the whole [anti-realist] research programme in a quite different metaphilosophical setting, more congenial to the idea of naturalized philosophy...The book is very lucidly written, and the main arguments are well signposted, presented and summarized...it is a very advanced work."—The Review of Metaphysics

"This is a bold book, perhaps even a brave book...a book broad in scope, and certainly a good book...Anyone interested in the realist/anti-realist controversy, whichever side she takes, should read it, for it presents the most sophisticated defence of moderate anti-realism to date."—Mind

From the Publisher