Talk:Deflationism

Why
What is unique to this article which is not covered in Deflationary theory of truth? Snowded TALK 18:14, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The Deflationary theory of truth applies deflation to the concept of 'truth' which is only a particular example of deflationism. In addition, none of the discussions nor sources in Deflationism appear in Deflationary theory of truth. Of course, Deflationary theory of truth is emphasized in the lead paragraph so a reader will be aware of this article and can find it easily. Brews ohare (talk) 18:28, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Not really, the whole point is that Deflationism is a theory of truth, you need to get agreement to overturn a previous community decision - raise it at the Philosophy working group page and see what people think. Snowded  TALK 18:32, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

RfC: Proposed replacement for redirect

 * The suggestion has been made that this proposal be converted to a subsection of Deflationary theory of truth. I have therefore moved the RfC to that talk page

RfC withdrawn by proposer in favour of a new proposal to add text to Deflationary theory of truth. New conversation is here Snowded  TALK 18:19, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Below is a proposed replacement for a redirect from Deflationism to the Deflationary theory of truth. The term 'deflationism' has a wider meaning than simply its application to 'truth' and is today taken to apply to ontology more generally than that. Please suggest improvements and other comments. Brews ohare (talk) 18:50, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Comments

 * As the sources and quotations in this article show, the term 'deflationism' has a wider meaning than simply its application to 'truth' and today is used in a sense more general than that. For that reason, a redirect to Deflationary theory of truth places too narrow an interpretation upon this term. Brews ohare (talk) 18:50, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not so sure of that. What seems like a wider meaning actually comes from truth being a part of all knowledge. So what seems like a wider meaning is still an application of the deflationary theory of truth, even though "deflationary theory of truth" appears to be referring only to the specific topic of truth.   --Bob K31416 (talk) 19:01, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Bob: You may have hit the nub of the matter here. I'm inclined to think two articles are needed because the cited authors refer to 'deflationism' and never to 'deflationary theory of truth', and in doing so appear to address ontology in general and the topic of existence quite generally. To me, 'truth' appears to be an aspect of some assertions (the Stanford article says "Truth and falsity are ascribed primarily to propositions"), and that does not seem to me to be the more general topic the cited authors are discussing. Brews ohare (talk) 19:48, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It is common for on-line encyclopedias to redirect to 'deflationary theory of truth' just as WP does now. However, it is interesting that none of these articles (e.g. Stanfor Encl., Intrnet Encl., Routledge Encl,) cites Carnap or the other authors referred to in this proposal. Brews ohare (talk) 20:17, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose This is yet more recycling of material that the editor has been attempting to place in other philosophy articles. It was redirected as a duplicate and any appropriate material should be placed on Deflationary theory of truth or a proposal made there to rename that article   Snowded  TALK 18:55, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Snowded: I guess this loose talk about 'recycling' is a suggestion that this proposal has no merit. The other suggestion about 'redirection as a duplicate' has no links for me to look at to make a judgment. Can you provide some specifics about content, Snowded, that might suggest improvement of this proposal? Brews ohare (talk) 19:48, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm opposed Brews so I'm not in favour of content here. Please don't do your normal thing of extended arguments with people who oppose you on a RfC, the idea is you leave people to comment  Snowded  TALK 19:50, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose Deflationism in meta-ontology does not subsume deflationism in general (if there is such a thing) so the suggested text is both inappropriate and, as Snowded pointed out, yet another attempt to coatrack the Carnap POV/OR. See the discussion at Talk:Meta-ontology and the numerous RfCs buried in the tl;dr preceding it.—Machine Elf 1735  23:35, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Have you anything to advance beyond your personal pronouncements to shore up your opinion? Have you some suggestions, perhaps, that would make this proposal a more substantial contribution to WP? Brews ohare (talk) 23:50, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Have you?—Machine Elf 1735  01:11, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose I will agree that the term 'deflationism' has gained somewhat wider cachet than just referring to the (family of) deflationary theories of truth; but I think at most a section or paragraph in Deflationary_theory_of_truth mentioning other analogical uses of the term is warranted. It might be better if that article as it currently is (possibly with the additional short section) was renamed to simply  'Deflationism' to make it more neutral with regards the meaning of the term, but I haven't looked into how it came to be at its current title (And anyway that would be a separate discussion from this one. Cheers. BrideOfKripkenstein (talk) 13:31, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

— Deflationism —
In philosophy the term deflationism refers to views of ontology that demote questions of existence to pragmatic questions about the appropriate use of language, and opposes the view that there are 'deeper' philosophical issues buried in existence questions. A particular application of 'deflation' is to the concept of truth, the deflationary theory of truth, which asserts that the word 'truth' in an assertion like 'it is true that snow is white' is a useless appendage inasmuch as this sentence means exactly the same thing as the assertion 'snow is white'. The 'deflationary theories of truth' are not about what 'truth' is; rather, they are theories of what we are saying when we make utterances like:  ‘"Routledge editors are fine folks" is true.’

Deflationism in the broader context of existence issues is often traced back to William James and Rudolf Carnap. Carnap's view holds that ontology, like all metaphysics, is meaningless. Carnap argues that ontological sentences are trivial within a 'framework' and meaningless outside of it. In this connection Thomasson says: ""But while the easy method yields answers to existence questions, it also deflates those questions so that there is nothing particularly deep or philosophical about them: they are to be answered simply by a combination of conceptual and empirical enquiry. While the conceptual work may be difficult and controversial, it is there (and not in making discoveries about what exists) that the real philosophical work lies. The result is a sort of Carnapian deflationism about existence claims: Existence claims must be made using a language, and (if they are to be meaningful and truth-evaluable) must involve using the meaningful terms of that language with their extant application conditions. Provided we approach existence questions using well-formed meaningful terms with application conditions, they are easy (internal) questions. Beyond that, the questions that remain are those of what language we should adopt—what terms, with what application conditions—and that, it seems, must be a pragmatic issue.""

- Amie L. Thomasson

Hilary Putnam and Eli Hirsch advance the view that ontological debates are merely verbal disputes. "Two main claims are defended in this paper: first that typical disputes in the literature about the ontology of physical objects are merely verbal; second, that the proper way to resolve these disputes is by appealing to common sense or ordinary language."

- Eli Hirsch

Hirsch holds that for any ontological position a language exists whose ontological vocabulary possesses such a meaning that the claims of this ontological position come out true in this language. Hirsch's position is called a 'deflationary view' by Kriegel and by Eklund: "I will focus on the deflationary conception of ontology. Specifically, I will be concerned with what form an acceptable deflationism about ontology might take. The most well-known and important form of deflationism about ontology has historically been associated with William James and Rudolf Carnap, and among its most important current proponents are Hilary Putnam and Eli Hirsch."

- Matti Eklund