Naturalism and the paradox of revisability

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87 (1):1–11 (2006)
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Abstract

This paper examines the paradox of revisability. This paradox was proposed by Jerrold Katz as a problem for Quinean naturalised epistemology. Katz employs diagonalisation to demonstrate what he takes to be an inconsistency in the constitutive principles of Quine's epistemology. Specifically, the problem seems to rest with the principle of universal revisability which states that no statement is immune to revision. In this paper it is argued that although there is something odd about employing universal revisability to revise itself, there is nothing paradoxical about this. At least, there is no paradox along the lines suggested by Katz.

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Mark Colyvan
University of Sydney

Citations of this work

The A Priori Without Magic.Jared Warren - 2022 - New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press.
Katz’s revisability paradox dissolved.Allard Tamminga & Sander Verhaegh - 2013 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91 (4):771-784.

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References found in this work

Ontological relativity and other essays.Willard Van Orman Quine (ed.) - 1969 - New York: Columbia University Press.
Two Dogmas of Empiricism.W. Quine - 1951 - [Longmans, Green].
From a Logical Point of View.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1953 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Knowledge and belief.Jaakko Hintikka - 1962 - Ithaca, N.Y.,: Cornell University Press.

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