A prolegomenon to the empirical cross-linguistic study of truth

Masaharu Mizumoto (Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)

Masahura Mizumoto will be giving a talk at the Virtual International Consortium of Truth Research on 29 September 2020 10:00 EDT, 15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST, 23:00 KST, 00:00 AEST +1, 03:00 NZDT +1. 

The title of the talk is: “A Prolegomenon to the empirical cross-linguistic study of truth”.

Abstract: In this paper we propose and justify the cross-linguistic study of truth based on empirical studies of truth predicates, by investigating in particular those in English and Japanese. Based on what we call the argument from linguistic diversity, we try to establish the relevance of linguistic data by showing the data of significant differences of the uses of truth predicates between English and Japanese. Our main discovery is that the moral-political factor in the truth-bearer (utterance) strongly affects the uses of Japanese truth predicates but not those of English “is true”. We will argue that this difference is due to the different semantic properties of respective truth predicates, by appealing to what we call the argument from intra-linguistic variance. Although this project is still preliminary, it shows that there is a linguistic variance in truth predicates, or at least that the possibility of what we call the lexical alethicpluralism is real, which would have significant implications for contemporary debates over relativism, deflationism, theory of meaning, etc.

Masaharu Mizumoto is associate professor of School of Knowledge Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

This will be a read ahead talk. If you are interested in attending, please email [email protected] for details on the zoom link and for a copy of the paper to be read in advance.

VICTR is sponsored by the Future of Truth project at the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute.

https://tinyurl.com/VICTR