A Principled Solution to Fitch’s Paradox

Author: Douven, Igor

Source: Erkenntnis, Volume 62, Number 1, January 2005 , pp. 47-69(23)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

To save antirealism from Fitch’s Paradox, Tennant has proposed to restrict the scope of the antirealist principle that all truths are knowable to truths that can be consistently assumed to be known. Although the proposal solves the paradox, it has been accused of doing so in an ad hoc manner. This paper argues that, first, for all Tennant has shown, the accusation is just; second, a restriction of the antirealist principle apparently weaker than Tennant’s yields a non-ad hoc solution to Fitch’s Paradox; and third, the alternative is only apparently weaker than, and even provably equivalent to, Tennant’s. It is thereby shown that the latter is not ad hoc after all.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10670-004-9563-0

Affiliations: 1: Department of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Postbus 1738, Rotterdam, 0113000, 011DR, 011The Netherlands, Email: douven@fwb.eur.nl

Publication date: 2005-01-01