"The king of France is bald" reconsidered: a case against Yablo
Abstract
Stephen Yablo has argued for metaontological antirealism: he believes that the sentences claiming or denying the existence of numbers (or other abstract entities or mereological sums) are inapt for truth valuation, because the reference failure of a numerical singular term (or a singular term for an abstract entity or a mereological sum) would not produce a truth value gap in any sentence containing that term. At the same time, Yablo believes that nothing similar applies to singular terms that aim to refer to an entity whose existence or non-existence is a factual matter, e.g. 'the king of France': the failure of the presupposition that there is a unique French king makes some sentences with the term 'the king of France', in particular "The king of France is bald", gappy. In this paper I will show that the sentence "The king of France is bald" must be false, and not gappy, according to Yablo's own criteria and that, furthermore, the presupposition that the term 'the king of France' ref...ers presents a fail-safe mechanism in the same way Yablo thinks abstract presuppositions do-this undermines his argument for metaontological antirealism.
Keywords:
Yablo / Truth value gap / Presupposition failure / Metaontological antirealismSource:
Philosophical Studies, 2014, 169, 2, 173-181Publisher:
- Springer, Dordrecht
Funding / projects:
- Logical-epistemological basis of metaphysics (RS-179067)
DOI: 10.1007/s11098-013-0164-0
ISSN: 0031-8116
WoS: 000336029900002
Scopus: 2-s2.0-84900841852
Institution/Community
Filozofija / PhilosophyTY - JOUR AU - Jandrić, Andrej PY - 2014 UR - http://reff.f.bg.ac.rs/handle/123456789/1802 AB - Stephen Yablo has argued for metaontological antirealism: he believes that the sentences claiming or denying the existence of numbers (or other abstract entities or mereological sums) are inapt for truth valuation, because the reference failure of a numerical singular term (or a singular term for an abstract entity or a mereological sum) would not produce a truth value gap in any sentence containing that term. At the same time, Yablo believes that nothing similar applies to singular terms that aim to refer to an entity whose existence or non-existence is a factual matter, e.g. 'the king of France': the failure of the presupposition that there is a unique French king makes some sentences with the term 'the king of France', in particular "The king of France is bald", gappy. In this paper I will show that the sentence "The king of France is bald" must be false, and not gappy, according to Yablo's own criteria and that, furthermore, the presupposition that the term 'the king of France' refers presents a fail-safe mechanism in the same way Yablo thinks abstract presuppositions do-this undermines his argument for metaontological antirealism. PB - Springer, Dordrecht T2 - Philosophical Studies T1 - "The king of France is bald" reconsidered: a case against Yablo EP - 181 IS - 2 SP - 173 VL - 169 DO - 10.1007/s11098-013-0164-0 ER -
@article{ author = "Jandrić, Andrej", year = "2014", abstract = "Stephen Yablo has argued for metaontological antirealism: he believes that the sentences claiming or denying the existence of numbers (or other abstract entities or mereological sums) are inapt for truth valuation, because the reference failure of a numerical singular term (or a singular term for an abstract entity or a mereological sum) would not produce a truth value gap in any sentence containing that term. At the same time, Yablo believes that nothing similar applies to singular terms that aim to refer to an entity whose existence or non-existence is a factual matter, e.g. 'the king of France': the failure of the presupposition that there is a unique French king makes some sentences with the term 'the king of France', in particular "The king of France is bald", gappy. In this paper I will show that the sentence "The king of France is bald" must be false, and not gappy, according to Yablo's own criteria and that, furthermore, the presupposition that the term 'the king of France' refers presents a fail-safe mechanism in the same way Yablo thinks abstract presuppositions do-this undermines his argument for metaontological antirealism.", publisher = "Springer, Dordrecht", journal = "Philosophical Studies", title = ""The king of France is bald" reconsidered: a case against Yablo", pages = "181-173", number = "2", volume = "169", doi = "10.1007/s11098-013-0164-0" }
Jandrić, A.. (2014). "The king of France is bald" reconsidered: a case against Yablo. in Philosophical Studies Springer, Dordrecht., 169(2), 173-181. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-013-0164-0
Jandrić A. "The king of France is bald" reconsidered: a case against Yablo. in Philosophical Studies. 2014;169(2):173-181. doi:10.1007/s11098-013-0164-0 .
Jandrić, Andrej, ""The king of France is bald" reconsidered: a case against Yablo" in Philosophical Studies, 169, no. 2 (2014):173-181, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-013-0164-0 . .