Deflationism and Intuitions

Next semester I will be taking an Independent Study class on Deflationism with Prof. Woodbridge. On doing preliminary research I found something unsettling.

Deflationism is a theory that concerns the nature (or lack thereof) of truth. It is a fairly new theory and is often considered radical. It is considered radical for (amongst other reasons) denying our deep seeded intuitions about truth. I was okay with this. Possibly because I did not have much intuitions about truth. Or maybe it was because I thought the truth (about truth?) must take presidency over intuitions (in any subject). In either case, I did not see an immediate problem with the way I went about my day and deflationism.

Nevertheless, upon further research (albeit preliminary) I find that deflationists might have to accept dialetheism (c.f. Prof. Armour-Garb and Prof. Beall), the view that "some sentences are equivalent to their negations" [1, p.593]. Now since this is preliminary research (which involves roughly reading a lot of abstracts and skimming through work) I cannot say whether this conclusion, i.e. that deflationists must accept dialetheism, is correct, accepted by others, or given a twist. However, what I can record is that this seems frightening. Unlike the intuitions about truth, I cannot easily given into dialetheism and reject my intutions about contradiction. Maybe it is because my intuitions about contradiction were more deep seeded than my intuitions about truth. I do not know exactly. Despite this, there are interesting questions to be raised. For one, why are my intuitions about contradiction more hard to uproot than my intuitions about truth? Should intuitions ever take presidency over argument? That is, should we blindly be lead by intuitions in the attempt to reconcile conclusions with intuitions? Anyone else have similar scenarios (regardless of the philosophical topic)?

More on this topic as classes begin.

References
[1] Armour-Garb, B., & Beall, J. C. (2001). Can Deflationists Be Dialetheists? Journal of Philosophical Logic , 30 (6), 593-608.

Introduction

This is yet another philosophy blog. I hope it will gain a readership, allow me to talk extensively with those in the philosophical community, and allow me to receive comments on current research projects.

A caveat: I am not an ardent blogger. As such, posts may be sporadic. I will do my best, if I gain a readership, to post more often. Most likely, once school begins and I stop being completely lazy, I will try to keep to a regular blogging schedule.