6 June 2025, Meaning, Logic, and Cognition (MLC) Seminar, Camila Gallovich

Abstract:

The process of grounding the statements of a first-order language with truth and the characterization of the semantic notions associated with that process can be made precise in different ways. In his Outline of a theory of truth, Kripke provides a bottom-up explanation of the process that makes use of a fixed-point semantics. The fixed-point construction allows for a rigorous characterization of the notions of groundedness, paradoxicality, hypodoxicality, s-truth, and s-falsity. Alternatively, in Truth, Dependence, and Paradox, Yablo offers a top-down explanation of the process of grounding that makes use of the elements of graph theory. The dependence account yields characterizations of the notions of groundedness and paradoxicality that are coextensive with those provided by the fixed-point conception of truth. One limitation affecting Yablo's proposal is that it remains silent on the semantic status of statements that are neither grounded nor paradoxical.

Since both theories are intended to serve as formal explanations of different aspects of the concepts of groundedness and ungroundedness, they can be naturally seen as motivating a form of theoretical pluralism. However, one may contend that the two approaches are not equally good since Yablo’s treatment of ungroundedness is not as fine-grained as one might expect. The aim of this talk is to build on the dependence account and argue that, at least to the extent that fine-grainedness is concerned, there is no principled reason to prefer one explanation over the other.

The talk will run as follows. In the first part, I make Kripke's fixed-point construction and Yablo’s dependence-based construction precise. In the second part, I provide dependence-style characterizations of the relevant semantic notions and show that the resulting characterizations extensionally coincide.

For more information, see https://projects.illc.uva.nl/FSPL/MLC-Seminar/event/35268/Camila-Gallovich-Buenos-Aires.