Mind, Meaning, and Knowledge: Themes from the Philosophy of Crispin Wright, edited by Annalisa Coliva.

Inferentialism is explained as an attempt to provide an account of meaning that is more sensitive (than the tradition of truth-conditional theorizing deriving from Tarski and Davidson) to what is learned when one masters meanings. The logically reformist inferentialism of Dummett and Prawitz is contrasted with the more recent quietist inferentialism of Brandom. Various other issues are highlighted for inferentialism in general, by reference to which different kinds of inferentialism can be characterized. Inferentialism for the logical operators is explained, with special reference to the Principle of Harmony. The statement of that principle in the author’s book Natural Logic is fine-tuned here in the way obviously required in order to bar an interesting would-be counterexample furnished by Crispin Wright, and to stave off any more of the same.

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Is Truth a Goal of Inquiry? Donald Davidson versus Crispin Wright

Truth and Progress ◽

10.1017/cbo9780511625404.002 ◽

1998 ◽

pp. 19-42 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Keyword(s):

Donald Davidson ◽

Crispin Wright

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Entitlement, Epistemic Risk, and Scepticism

Episteme ◽

10.1017/epi.2019.27 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1-11

Author(s):

Luca Moretti

Keyword(s):

Probabilistic Reasoning ◽

Perceptual Justification ◽

Crispin Wright ◽

Epistemic Risk

AbstractCrispin Wright maintains that the architecture of perceptual justification is such that we can acquire justification for our perceptual beliefs only if we have antecedent justification for ruling out any sceptical alternative. Wright contends that this principle doesn't elicit scepticism, for we are non-evidentially entitled to accept the negation of any sceptical alternative. Sebastiano Moruzzi has challenged Wright's contention by arguing that since our non-evidential entitlements don't remove the epistemic risk of our perceptual beliefs, they don't actually enable us to acquire justification for these beliefs. In this paper I show that Wright's responses to Moruzzi are ineffective and that Moruzzi's argument is validated by probabilistic reasoning. I also suggest that Wright couldn't answer Moruzzi's challenge without weakening the support available for his conception of the architecture of perceptual justification.

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Truth, Objectivity, and Realism

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199557929.013.14 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Sanford Shieh

Keyword(s):

Semantic Approach ◽

Crispin Wright ◽

Semantic Realism ◽

Michael Dummett ◽

Ontological Approach ◽

Flexible Framework

This chapter is concerned with a semantic (as opposed to ontological) approach to metaphysics, developed by Michael Dummett and Crispin Wright, that takes truth as fundamental, and explicates debates about realisms in terms of truth. On this approach realism is fundamentally concerned with the objectivity of truth, where objectivity does not consist in the existence of entities. The chapter shows that Dummett worked with three separable criteria for the objectivity of truth, which support a subtle and flexible framework for characterizing various degrees of realism. It argues that Dummett’s so-called “manifestation” arguments against semantic realism can handle many objections that have been brought against them. It discusses Wright’s minimalism about truth, his four semantic criteria of realism, their inter-relations, and their connections to Dummett’s criteria. It concludes with reflections on the meta-philosophical status of the semantic approach: the reasons in favor of pursuing it and its adequacy to metaphysical reflection.

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