In the course of this paper, I shall argue that an absolute ineffable God of Islam is contradictory beyond the ordinary categories (substantive or insubstantive) of truth. In order to demonstrate my thesis, I shall refer to a metaphysical and epistemological inquiry. In virtue of both of these inquires, I shall establish that the contradictory assumption ‘the God of Islam is absolutely ineffable’ cannot be false in a substantive or an insubstantive sense. The metaphysical inquiry shall comprise of (...) two related phases. The first phase includes logical realism and anti-realism, while the second phase includes ontological realism and ontological deflationism. I demonstrate that the contradictory assumption ‘the God of Islam is absolutely ineffable’ cannot be considered false in virtue of these outlooks for different reasons. The epistemological inquiry refers to epistemicism. I demonstrate that although this particular view infers an indeterminate truth-value of the contradictory assumption ‘the God of Islam is absolutely ineffable’, it is incompatible with the notion of an absolute ineffable God of Islam. In light of both these inquires, it will become apparent that the contradictory assumption of an absolute ineffable God of Islam cannot be false in a substantive or insubstantive sense. This is because an absolute ineffable God of Islam transcends beyond these very categories of falsehood and truth. (shrink)

The laws of logic and two of the broader theories of truth are fundamental components that are responsible for espousing an ontology and meaningfulness in matters of analytic philosophy. In this respect they have persisted as conventional attitudes or modes of thought which most, if not all, of analytic philosophy uses to philosophize. However, despite the conceptual productivity of these components they are unable to account for matters that are beyond them. These matters would include certain theological beliefs, for instance, (...) that transcend the purview of analytic ontology and the meaningfulness it ensues. Any attempt in making rational sense of such beliefs that are insusceptible to these methodological components would conventionally prohibit (restrict) us from rationally believing in them. This is because we would be unable to make sense of such beliefs with the aid of these methodological components. As a result of this, religious beliefs of this particular nature would be deemed irrational. I shall demonstrate this point by applying both of these components to an absolutely ineffable God of Islam. This would entail, attempting to make sense of an absolutely ineffable God of Islam in virtue of the laws of logic and two broad categories of truth theories, namely, substantive and insubstantive theories. I hope to establish that applying both of these methodological components in attempting to make sense of an absolutely ineffable God of Islam would not be conceptually viable. It would result in a contradictory notion which I shall allude to as the paradox of ineffability. (shrink)

In Chapter 1 we discussed the reasons to take truth to be a property. This presents a challenge for deflationary approaches to truth, as, with the ultra deflationary proposals off the table, they now need to both hold that truth is a property and deny that there are interesting metaphysical things to say about truth. This is where the notion of a ‘substantive’ property comes in, as instead of denying that truth is a property, deflationists typically deny that it is (...) a ‘substantive’ property. The main aim of this chapter is to discern the best way to distinguish between substantive and insubstantive properties, and thus to provide the best possible terms in which to conduct the debate between deflationists and their ‘inflationist’ opponents. This chapter argues that three influential accounts fail, and offers a more promising view of property substantiveness in terms of a distinction between abundant and sparse properties. (shrink)

One of the many ways that ‘deflationary’ and ‘inflationary’ theories of truth are said to differ is in their attitude towards truth qua property. This difference used to be very easy to delineate, with deflationists denying, and inflationists asserting, that truth is a property, but more recently the debate has become a lot more complicated, owing primarily to the fact that many contemporary deflationists often do allow for truth to be considered a property. Anxious to avoid inflation, however, these deflationists (...) are at pains to point out that the truth property, on their view, is not a property of any significant interest. Correspondingly, inflationists have seen this as an opportunity to refine what kind of property they think truth is, which—according to them—moves their views beyond deflationism. The upshot of this is that there are number of different accounts in the literature of what distinguishes an inflationary truth property from a deflationary one, or—as it is sometimes put—what distinguishes a ‘substantive’ property from an ‘insubstantive’ one. This has made it hard to pin down exactly what is at issue at the metaphysical level between deflationists and inflationists, which makes it increasingly hard to see how debates between them are properly phrased. Given that these positions represent the two central attitudes towards truth in contemporary debates, this makes for a serious obstacle for the project of discerning the correct theory of truth. The aim of this paper is to discern the best way to distinguish between substantive and insubstantive properties, and thus to restore some focus to these debates. I argue that the three central distinctions in the literature fail, and offer what I take to be a more promising distinction in terms of a graded distinction between abundant and sparse properties. (shrink)

In Truth and Objectivity, Crispin Wright argues that because truth is a distinctively normative property, it cannot be as metaphysically insubstantive as deflationists claim.1 This argument has been taken, together with the scope problem,2 as one of the main motivations for alethic pluralism.3 We offer a reconstruction of Wright’s Inflationary Argument (henceforth IA) aimed at highlighting what are the steps required to establish its inflationary conclusion. We argue that if a certain metaphysical and epistemological view of a given subject (...) matter is accepted, a local counterexample to IA can be constructed. We focus on the domain of basic taste and we develop two variants of a subjectivist and relativist metaphysics and epistemology that seems palatable in that domain. Although we undertake no commitment to this being the right metaphysical cum epistemological package for basic taste, we contend that if the metaphysics and the epistemology of basic taste are understood along these lines, they call for a truth property whose nature is not distinctively normative—contra what IA predicts. This result shows that the success of IA requires certain substantial metaphysical and epistemological principles and that, consequently, a proper assessment of IA cannot avoid taking a stance on the metaphysics and the epistemology of the domain where it is claimed to be successful. Although we conjecture that IA might succeed in other domains, in this paper we don’t take a stand on this issue. We conclude by briefly discussing the significance of this result for the debate on alethic pluralism. (shrink)

In Truth and Objectivity, Crispin Wright argues that because truth is a distinctively normative property, it cannot be as metaphysically insubstantive as deflationists claim. We offer a reconstruction of Wright’s Inflationary Argument that highlights the steps required to establish its inflationary conclusion. We argue that if a certain metaphysical and epistemological view of a given subject matter is accepted, a local counterexample to the Inflationary Argument can be constructed. As a case study we focus on the domain of basic (...) taste. We develop two variants of a subjectivist and relativist metaphysics and epistemology that seem palatable in that domain and we show that the Inflationary Argument doesn’t go through in the domain of basic taste thus construed. We conclude by briefly discussing the significance of this result for the debate on alethic pluralism. (shrink)

This second essay is concerned with the intentional-historical account of art, focusing on the nature of the artifactuality of artworks presupposed by the account. It develops ideas on the artifactuality of artworks in counterpoint with recent contributions on the subject by Paul Bloom and Amie Thomasson. Against Bloom — who seeks to extend the intentional-historical account to all artifacts — it defends the claim that artworks remain a distinctive sort of artifact in possessing, perhaps alone of all artifact kinds, only (...) intentional-historical necessary conditions. Against Thomasson — who maintains that artifact-making necessarily involves a substantive conception of what is being made — it defends the claim that the conception of artwork necessarily involved in art-making, although not without content, is about as insubstantive as an object concept can be. (shrink)

A experiência é apenas um estado instantâneo de impressão sensível nisso que tem a experiência. Esta expressão resume a substância epistemológica do que constitui a posição empiricista polarizada na forma de pensamento paradigmatizada por David Hume e acriticamente aceite por Immanuel Kant. Tal posição, ao invés da tese aristotélica, impede qualquer modo trans-sensível, logo, trans-material de pensamento. A metafísica torna-se impossível. Kant procura ultrapassar esta impossibilidade através da criação de uma construção lógico-epistemológica que designa como arquitectónica transcendental. O mundo em (...) que o transcendentalismo kantiano pôs a intelectualidade a viver é um mundo reduzido a um jogo lógico, insubstante para além de si próprio, num solipsismo que condena o ser humano a viver definitivamente alienado de uma realidade que não seja a de seu próprio pensamento. A sua proposta de superação deste novo impasse através de uma teoria da acção cai na contradição de postular teoricamente algo que a razão nunca pode postular, pois não há ou pode haver qualquer referência empírica. A verdade da razão teórica impede a verdade quer da razão prática quer da razão estética. (shrink)

Metasemantic inferentialismhas gained popularity in the last few decades. Traditionally, inferentialism is combined with a deflationary attitude towards semantic terms such as truth and reference, i.e., many inferentialists hold that when we use these semantic terms we do not purport to refer to substantive properties. This combination makes inferentialism attractive for philosophers who see themselves as antirealists. Although the attractions of combining inferentialism and deflationism are easy to see, deflationism is also a controversial position. For one, deflationists maintain that truth (...) is an insubstantive property, but it is not altogether clear what an insubstantive property is. Secondly, as deflationists maintain that truth does not play an explanatory role, it is incompatible with the position that truth can explain the normativity of truth talk. Given that deflationism faces these objections, it would be preferable if the success of inferentialism did not depend on the deflationist’s ability to respond to these objections. I argue that someone attracted to inferentialism for its ability to accommodate antirealist intuitions about a domain (e.g. morality) is not committed to deflationism about truth. More specifically, I will show that inferentialism combined with a straightforward account of inferentialist truth-conditions is compatible with a version of truth pluralism. I call this position Inferentialist Truth Pluralism. (shrink)

A distinction should be made between:1. Fundamental philosophy, covering epistemological, logical, and methodological questions as well as basic ontological ones; and 2. metaphysics bent on solving, in the light of fundamental philosophy, the problem of the metaphysical structure of substantive being.The history of philosophy shows that metaphysics has failed so far to present a unique (universally and definitely accepted) solution of its problem; it is subject to internal struggle among contending systems: Plato’s, Aristotle’s, Rusticus the Deacon’s, John of Damascus’, Thomas (...) Aquinas’ (early years), Duns Scotus’, Cajetano’s and Suarez’s. The metaphysics presented here considers itself as a synthesis, or rather as the final stage of the development of metaphysics from Aristotle to Thomas Aquinaś’ mature age, through Rusticus the Deacon.Such substantive beings as man, animal or plant are „enlarged” substantive beings, consisting of a soul, substantive being stricto sensu, complemented into an „enlarged” substantive being by a body, collection of material, substantive beings, formed by the soul into an organism appropriate to it, and united by virtue of the soul’s substantiveness into the sphere of that same substantiveness. The souls are „entia alteri incommunicabilia”, they cannot be incorporated into the frame of any alien substantiveness. The material substantive beings are „entia alteri communicabilia”; as such they can be incorporated into the frame of the substantiveness of non-material substantive beings.The metaphysical structure of substantive beings stricto sensu and that of both material substantive beings and uncorporeal substantive beings, parallel to the former, is as follows:The substantive being stricto sensu, qua being limited in perfection, compound, n,on-unique, contingent, subject to change — in the light of the theory of act and potency consists of:1. act — esse, forma, suprastantia, natura;2. potency — suppositum, first stuff, substantia, subsistentia. Both esse and actual insubstantive being, but „in alio”, i. e. „supra alium”. Suppositum is an. insubstantive potential being, but „in se” and „sub alio”. The esse of a substantive being sensu stricto consists of a fundamental, permanent esse, and of a superficial, functional esse. In the souls, the fundamental esse is an assembly composed of active and passive faculties; from the potentialities of the passive faculties arises the functional esse, the assembly of the acts of the faculties. In material substantive beings the fundamental esse is extension, magnitude, quality, etc; the functional esse is the „forces” of the material being. The suppositum (first stuff, substantia, subsistentia) is the ontological keystone of substantive being, uniting diversely composed esse (forma, suprastantia, natura) in one substantive individuum (unum et aliquid substantivum); it is, at the same time, the element individuating the substantive being in the given one substantive individuum.In the light of the theory of act and potency (potentia cognoscitur per actum sibi correspondentem) should be distinguished, parallel to multiform esse’s (forma, suprastantia, natura), multiform suppositum (first stuff, substantia, subsistentia) — namely spiritual, sensitive, vegetative, material ones. Material suppositum (material first stuff, material substantia, material subsistentia) is prime matter.The system of substantive beings is a scale with analogous rungs: „ens alteri communicabile materiale”, „ens alteri incommunicabile vegetativum” — vegetable individual, „ens alteri incommunicabile sensitivum” — animal individual, and „ens alteri incommunicabile, sui compos et sui iuris”, rational, free, immortal rational individuum — person. Rational suppositum (first stuff, substantia, subsistentia) is the element constituting a person. (shrink)