The Deflationary Approach to Truth
A Guide
Will be published approx. on 26. February 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
360 pages
978-0-19-757740-0 (ISBN)
Description
"Deflationary" theories are views about truth that are often, but not always, characterized as accounts that accept the utility of the truth predicate without granting the metaphysical or epistemological assumptions that usually go along with it. The Deflationary Approach to Truth: A Guide presents a detailed, up-to-date, and historically informed survey and critical explication of the deflationary approach to the topic of truth, paying special attention to the wide range of various deflationary theories.
In Part One, Bradley Armour-Garb and James A. Woodbridge explain what the deflationary approach to truth involves and develop a useful framework that clarifies how it differs from the traditional, "inflationary" approach. The framework illuminates certain general deflationary themes in terms of what Armour-Garb and Woodbridge call broad four-dimensional deflationism. This analysis reveals four different dimensions that any deflationary account must satisfy: Linguistic Deflationism, Metaphysical Deflationism, Conceptual Deflationism, and Paradox Treatment Deflationism. Armour-Garb and Woodbridge examine the degree to which these dimensions are displayed in early, "proto-deflationary" accounts before explaining the different contemporary deflationary views and assessing the degree to which these accounts adhere to the four deflationary dimensions, differ from inflationism, and differ from each other.
In Part Two, Armour-Garb and Woodbridge examine various challenges to deflationism, systematizing them by considering each deflationary dimension and grouping the challenges in terms of which dimension they target. For each challenge, they explain its historical development and investigate the extent to which the most prominent contemporary deflationary accounts answer, or fail to answer, that challenge. In Part Three, Armour-Garb and Woodbridge explore fruitful new directions for deflationism and develop a version of the approach that they think best handles the challenges that are examined in Part Two. The result is an accessible yet comprehensive overview of the challenges to and merits of the deflationary approach to truth.
In Part One, Bradley Armour-Garb and James A. Woodbridge explain what the deflationary approach to truth involves and develop a useful framework that clarifies how it differs from the traditional, "inflationary" approach. The framework illuminates certain general deflationary themes in terms of what Armour-Garb and Woodbridge call broad four-dimensional deflationism. This analysis reveals four different dimensions that any deflationary account must satisfy: Linguistic Deflationism, Metaphysical Deflationism, Conceptual Deflationism, and Paradox Treatment Deflationism. Armour-Garb and Woodbridge examine the degree to which these dimensions are displayed in early, "proto-deflationary" accounts before explaining the different contemporary deflationary views and assessing the degree to which these accounts adhere to the four deflationary dimensions, differ from inflationism, and differ from each other.
In Part Two, Armour-Garb and Woodbridge examine various challenges to deflationism, systematizing them by considering each deflationary dimension and grouping the challenges in terms of which dimension they target. For each challenge, they explain its historical development and investigate the extent to which the most prominent contemporary deflationary accounts answer, or fail to answer, that challenge. In Part Three, Armour-Garb and Woodbridge explore fruitful new directions for deflationism and develop a version of the approach that they think best handles the challenges that are examined in Part Two. The result is an accessible yet comprehensive overview of the challenges to and merits of the deflationary approach to truth.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 145 mm
Thickness: 33 mm
Weight
363 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-757740-0 (9780197577400)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
09/2025
Oxford University Press Inc
€100.50
Shipment within 15-20 days
E-Book
08/2025
OUP eBook
€21.99
Available for download
E-Book
08/2025
OUP eBook
€21.99
Available for download
Persons
Bradley Armour-Garb is Professor and Department Chair of Philosophy at the University at Albany-SUNY. His primary interests are in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of logic, and metaphysics with an interest in epistemology, and the philosophy of mathematics. Much of his work has regarded truth and paradox. He is the author and editor of several books.
James A. Woodbridge is Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His primary philosophical interests are in philosophy of language, metaphysics, and philosophical logic. He is the co-author, with Bradley Armour-Garb, of Pretense and Pathology: Philosophical Fictionalism and its Applications (2015).
James A. Woodbridge is Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His primary philosophical interests are in philosophy of language, metaphysics, and philosophical logic. He is the co-author, with Bradley Armour-Garb, of Pretense and Pathology: Philosophical Fictionalism and its Applications (2015).
Content
PART 1: WHAT DEFLATIONISM IS
1. Framing the General Approach
1.1 Deflationism vs. Inflationism
1.2 The Dimensions of Deflationism
1.3 On the Instability of "Partial Deflationism"
1.4 Motivations and Methodological Disputes
2. Early and Proto-Deflationary Accounts
2.1 Frege on Truth
2.2 Ramsey and the Redundancy Theory
2.3 Ayer on 'True'
2.4 Wittgenstein on Truth-Talk
2.5 Strawson on What We Do with Truth-Talk
2.6 Tarski and the (T)-Schema
3. The Species of Deflationism
3.1 Prosententialism
3.1.1 Prior's Adverbial Prosententialism
3.1.2 Williams's Substitutional Prosententialism
3.1.3 Grover, Camp, and Belnap's Atomic Prosententialism
3.1.4 Brandom's Operator Prosententialism
3.2 Disquotationalism
3.2.1 Quine's Disquotationalism
3.2.2 Leeds's Recursive Disquotationalism
3.2.3 Field's Pure Disquotational Truth
3.3 Minimalism
3.3.1 Horwich's Minimalism
3.3.2 Hill's Substitutional Minimalism
PART 2. CHALLENGES TO DEFLATIONISM
4. Challenges to Linguistic Deflationism
4.1 Immanence and Limitations on Truth-Ascriptions
4.1.1 Immanence and Deflationism
4.1.2 Immanence, Foreign Sentences, Sentences Speakers Do Not Understand
4.2 The Formulation and Generalization Problems
4.2.1 The Formulation Problem
4.2.2 Understanding the Generalization Problem
4.2.3 Justifying Generalizations vs. Proving Generalizations
4.2.4 Field and Hill on Proving Generalizations
5. Challenges to Metaphysical Deflationism
5.1 The Causal-Explanatory Role Challenge
5.1.1 Explaining the Success of Science
5.1.2 Explaining Behavioral Success
5.2 The Conservativeness Argument
5.2.1 Explaining the Conservativeness Argument
5.2.2 Responses to the Conservativeness Argument
5.2.3 Consequences of the Conservativeness Argument
5.3 The Correspondence Intuition, Truthmaking, and the Truth Property Thesis
5.3.1 From the Correspondence Intuition to Truth-Maker Theory
5.3.2 The Truth-Property Thesis
5.4 The Challenge from Normativity
6. Challenges to Conceptual Deflationism
6.1 "Truth-Involving" Accounts That Deflationists Can Accept
6.2 "Truth-Involving" Accounts That Deflationists Must Replace
6.3 Deflationism and Theories of Meaning/Content
7. Formal Challenges and Paradox Treatment Deflationism
7.1 Constraints on an Adequate Resolution of the Liar Paradox
7.1.1 General Constraints on Adequate Paradox Treatment
7.1.2 Constraints for Paradox Treatment Deflationism
7.2 Tarski's Replacement Theory and the Liar Paradox
7.3 Kripke and Ungroundedness
7.4 Field on the 'Determinately' Operator
7.5 Grover and Semantic Inheritors
7.6 Horwich's Semantic Epistemicism
7.7 Deflationary Dialetheism
7.8 Deflationism, the Paradoxes, and Concluding Remarks
Appendix: New Directions via Sentential-Variable Deflationism and Alethic Fictionalism
A.1 ASVD and the "How-Talk" NLI Approach
A.2 The Merits of ASVD
A.2.1 Avoiding the Formulation and Generalization Problems
A.2.2 Emergence and Resolution of the Liar Paradox
A.2.3 ASVD and the Conservativeness Argument
A.2.4 Why Have a Truth Predicate?
A.3 From ASVD to Alethic Fictionalism
A.4 Conclusions: Accommodating Broad Four-Dimensional Deflationism
Bibliography
index
1. Framing the General Approach
1.1 Deflationism vs. Inflationism
1.2 The Dimensions of Deflationism
1.3 On the Instability of "Partial Deflationism"
1.4 Motivations and Methodological Disputes
2. Early and Proto-Deflationary Accounts
2.1 Frege on Truth
2.2 Ramsey and the Redundancy Theory
2.3 Ayer on 'True'
2.4 Wittgenstein on Truth-Talk
2.5 Strawson on What We Do with Truth-Talk
2.6 Tarski and the (T)-Schema
3. The Species of Deflationism
3.1 Prosententialism
3.1.1 Prior's Adverbial Prosententialism
3.1.2 Williams's Substitutional Prosententialism
3.1.3 Grover, Camp, and Belnap's Atomic Prosententialism
3.1.4 Brandom's Operator Prosententialism
3.2 Disquotationalism
3.2.1 Quine's Disquotationalism
3.2.2 Leeds's Recursive Disquotationalism
3.2.3 Field's Pure Disquotational Truth
3.3 Minimalism
3.3.1 Horwich's Minimalism
3.3.2 Hill's Substitutional Minimalism
PART 2. CHALLENGES TO DEFLATIONISM
4. Challenges to Linguistic Deflationism
4.1 Immanence and Limitations on Truth-Ascriptions
4.1.1 Immanence and Deflationism
4.1.2 Immanence, Foreign Sentences, Sentences Speakers Do Not Understand
4.2 The Formulation and Generalization Problems
4.2.1 The Formulation Problem
4.2.2 Understanding the Generalization Problem
4.2.3 Justifying Generalizations vs. Proving Generalizations
4.2.4 Field and Hill on Proving Generalizations
5. Challenges to Metaphysical Deflationism
5.1 The Causal-Explanatory Role Challenge
5.1.1 Explaining the Success of Science
5.1.2 Explaining Behavioral Success
5.2 The Conservativeness Argument
5.2.1 Explaining the Conservativeness Argument
5.2.2 Responses to the Conservativeness Argument
5.2.3 Consequences of the Conservativeness Argument
5.3 The Correspondence Intuition, Truthmaking, and the Truth Property Thesis
5.3.1 From the Correspondence Intuition to Truth-Maker Theory
5.3.2 The Truth-Property Thesis
5.4 The Challenge from Normativity
6. Challenges to Conceptual Deflationism
6.1 "Truth-Involving" Accounts That Deflationists Can Accept
6.2 "Truth-Involving" Accounts That Deflationists Must Replace
6.3 Deflationism and Theories of Meaning/Content
7. Formal Challenges and Paradox Treatment Deflationism
7.1 Constraints on an Adequate Resolution of the Liar Paradox
7.1.1 General Constraints on Adequate Paradox Treatment
7.1.2 Constraints for Paradox Treatment Deflationism
7.2 Tarski's Replacement Theory and the Liar Paradox
7.3 Kripke and Ungroundedness
7.4 Field on the 'Determinately' Operator
7.5 Grover and Semantic Inheritors
7.6 Horwich's Semantic Epistemicism
7.7 Deflationary Dialetheism
7.8 Deflationism, the Paradoxes, and Concluding Remarks
Appendix: New Directions via Sentential-Variable Deflationism and Alethic Fictionalism
A.1 ASVD and the "How-Talk" NLI Approach
A.2 The Merits of ASVD
A.2.1 Avoiding the Formulation and Generalization Problems
A.2.2 Emergence and Resolution of the Liar Paradox
A.2.3 ASVD and the Conservativeness Argument
A.2.4 Why Have a Truth Predicate?
A.3 From ASVD to Alethic Fictionalism
A.4 Conclusions: Accommodating Broad Four-Dimensional Deflationism
Bibliography
index