THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF
TRUTH
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the Universitys objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
Oxford University Press 2018
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2018
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017959372
ISBN 9780199557929
eISBN 9780191502668
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
Acknowledgments
This volume was very long in the making. My main debt of gratitude is to the authors who have contributed, and to Peter Momtchiloff at Oxford University Press. All of them offered generous support and incredible patience through the long process of bringing this volume to fruition. I benefited frequently from the advice of many collaborators, friends, and teachers, including Jc Beall, the late George Boolos, Christopher Gauker, Warren Goldfarb, Volker Halbach, Richard Kimberly Heck, Jeffrey C. King, Ernie Lepore, Charles Parsons, Agustn Rayo, Sanford Shieh, Zoltn Gendler Szab, and Gabriel Uzquiano. Thanks do not express what I owe to Ching-I. Her strength and her grace amaze and inspire me. Three friends who would have found it interesting passed away while this volume was being prepared: Aldo Antonelli, Delia Graff Fara, and James Higginbotham. This volume is dedicated to their memory.
Contents
Michael Glanzberg
Jan Szaif
Margaret Cameron
Alan Nelson
Clinton Tolley
Thomas Baldwin
Peter Sullivan and Colin Johnston
Richard Kimberly Heck and Robert May
Ralph C. S. Walker
Marian David
Stewart Candlish and Nic Damnjanovic
Cheryl Misak
Jeffrey C. King
Ross P. Cameron
Neil Tennant
Ian Rumfitt
Sanford Shieh
Jody Azzouni
Alexis Burgess
Herman Cappelen and Torfinn Thomesen Huvenes
Nikolaj J. L. L. Pedersen and Michael P. Lynch
Mark Schroeder
Anjan Chakravartty
Graham Oddie
ystein Linnebo
Roy A. Sorensen
Greg Ray
Kentaro Fujimoto and Volker Halbach
Jc Beall and David Ripley
Keith Simmons
Jody Azzouni, Professor of Philosophy, Tufts University
Thomas Baldwin, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, University of York, Emeritus
Jc Beall, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut; Professor of Philosophy, University of Tasmania.
Alexis Burgess, independent scholar
Margaret Cameron, Canada Research Council Chair in the Aristotelian Tradition and Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Victoria
Ross P. Cameron, Professor of Philosophy, University of Virginia
Stewart Candlish, Senior Honorary Research Fellow, The University of Western Australia
Herman Cappelen, Professor of Philosophy, University of Oslo and University of St Andrews
Anjan Chakravartty, Appignani Foundation Chair and Professor of Philosophy, University of Miami
Nic Damnjanovic Barrister, Barrister, Fountain Court Chambers, London; formerly Assistant Professor of Philosophy, The University of Western Australia
Marian David, University Professor, Karl-Franzens University of Graz
Kentaro Fujimoto, Lecturer in Mathematics and Philosophical Logic, University of Bristol
Volker Halbach, Professor of Philosophy, Oxford University and Fellow of New College, Oxford
Richard Kimberly, Professor of Philosophy, Brown University
Torfinn Thomesen Huvenes, Lecturer in the Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, Ume University
Colin Johnston, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Stirling
Jeffrey C. King, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Rutgers University
ystein Linnebo, Professor of Philosophy, University of Oslo
Michael P. Lynch, Professor of Philosophy, University of Connecticut
Robert May, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Davis
Cheryl Misak, University Professor and Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto
Alan Nelson, Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Graham Oddie, Professor of Philosophy, University of Colorado, Boulder
Nikolaj J. L. L. Pedersen, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Yonsei University
Greg Ray, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Florida
David Ripley, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Florida
Ian Rumfitt, Professor of Philosophy, Oxford University and Senior Research Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford
Mark Schroeder, Professor of Philosophy, University of Southern California
Sanford Shieh, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Wesleyan University
Keith Simmons, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Connecticut
Roy A. Sorensen, Professor of Philosophy, Washington University, St Louis
Peter Sullivan, Professor of Philosophy, University of Stirling
Jan Szaif, Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Davis
Neil Tennant, Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor in Philosophy, Ohio State University
Clinton Tolley, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego
Ralph C. S. Walker, Emeritus Fellow in Philosophy of Magdalen College, Oxford
Michael Glanzberg
READERS hold before them a volume bearing the title Handbook of Truth. A title like this suggests something very demanding: a book to keep at hand in which to find truths. Such a book would be useful indeed! But we might imagine it to be so long as to be unwieldy. After all, such a book would in effect have to list all truths, or at least enough of them to be worthy of the title Handbook.
But there is no such book, and I doubt there could ever be one. For all the folly involved in editing a large Handbook, I certainly did not set out to edit that book. But care about wording reminds us the book that does not exist would have been better called the Handbook of Truths. The book presented here is rather a Handbook of Truth