Truth, Demonstration and Knowledge: A Classical Solution to the Paradox of Knowability∗

After introducing semantic anti-realism and the paradox of knowability, the paper offers a reconstruction of the anti-realist argument from understanding. The proposed reconstruction validates an unrestricted principle to the effect that truth requires the existence of a certain kind of “demonstration”. The paper shows that that principle fails to imply the problematic instances of the original unrestricted feasible-knowability principle but that the overall view underlying the new principle ∗An earlier version of the material in this paper has been presented in 2005 (no typo!) at the Friday Seminar (University of St Andrews), where Philip Ebert gave a valuable response. I would like to thank that audience for a very stimulating discussion, as well as Christopher Peacocke, Sven Rosenkranz and Crispin Wright for reading through a later version and providing me with extremely useful feedback (and thank Sven one more time for a challenging last-minute conversation). I am also grateful to an anonymous referee for criticisms of a yet later version that led to many improvements, and to the editor of this special issue Gabriel Uzquiano for inviting me to contribute to the issue, for his comments on the paper and for his support and patience throughout the process. At different stages during the writing of the paper, I have benefitted from an AHRC Doctoral Fellowship, from the FP7 Marie Curie Intra-European Research Fellowship 301493 on A Non-Contractive Theory of Naive Semantic Properties: Logical Developments and Metaphysical Foundations (NTNSP) and from the FCT Research Fellowship IF/01202/2013 on Tolerance and Instability: The Substructure of Cognitions, Transitions and Collections (TI), as well as from partial funds from the project CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 CSD2009-00056 of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation on Philosophy of Perspectival Thoughts and Facts (PERSP), from the project FFI201125626 of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation on Reference, Self-Reference and Empirical Data and from the project FFI2012-35026 of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competition on The Makings of Truth: Nature, Extent, and Applications of Truthmaking.