What philosophers do

Posted by Russ Abbott on Jul 19, 2011; 4:25am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/What-philosophers-do-tp6597482.html

I just came across a review of a new book on truth. The review says, in part, 

The volume is an ambitious attempt to survey the field of current work on truth as it relates to a variety of topics. ... It may thus be recommended as an excellent primer for anyone looking to get an overview of current work on issues concerning truth in areas including norms of belief, relativism, color, truth-making, critical reflection, autonomy, as well more traditional themes such as paradoxes, deflationism, coherence, correspondence, pluralism, and the status of bivalence. "

Since I had no idea what deflationism means with respect to truth, I looked it up and found that there is an article devoted to it in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 

This seems to me to be typical of the sort of work that philosophers do. The distinctions that are analyzed are real--and in some cases even interesting. But somehow the effort seems to me to be much to parochial, which is a strange thing to say considering that it is dealing with a notion as general and important as truth.

-- Russ 

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