There is a kind of argument, a paradigmatic example of which is what Lewis (1984) calls `Putnam's paradox', which have as their conclusion that everything we say is, when interpreted correctly, true. This conclusion is taken by almost everyone to be disastrous, so inasmuch as its premises are plausible and the argument is valid, we have a paradox on our hands. The most common response to the argument, developed by Lewis himself and others, is to avoid the conclusion by appealing to constraints on interpretation that do not depend on our psychology or conventions, either individually or collectively; some things are just objectively more eligible to be represented in our thought and talk. In this paper I defend a different response to the paradox and outline an underappreciated alternative conception of interpretation indicated by this different response.

by Dr Alexander Sandgren

Postdoctoral Researcher, Umeå University

Alex Sandgren received his PhD from the Australian National University in 2016. He is currently a researcher in philosophy at Umeå University in Sweden, working on Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Language, Decision Theory, Logic and Philosophy of Logic, Philosophy of Science, Metaphysics, History of Philosophy (Early Modern, Early Analytic, and Ancient Greek).

Zoom link @ https://tinyurl.com/philo0306