A Solution to the Paradox of Idealization in Modal Epistemic Languages

Date

2016-02-01

Author

Akçelik, Oğuz

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Human beings are endowed with finite cognitive capacities so that there are forever unknowntruths. This fact is stated by non-omniscience thesis (NO). On the other hand many philosophers, especially semantic anti-realists, hold that all truths (even the unknown ones)are knowable, and this is stated by the knowability principle (KP). The so-called Paradox of Idealization consists in the derivation of a contradiction from the following, initially plausible, premises. First, thesis (FU) stating that there are feasibly unknowable truths in thesense of truths knowable only by idealized agents , second, thesis (NI) stating that there are no idealized agents, and third, above mentioned thesis (KP). We show that by interpreting (NI) asstating that no actual agent is idealized, the derivation of contradiction from the conjunctionof (FU), (NI), and (KP) is blocked.

Subject Keywords

The Paradox of idealization, Modal epistemic languages, Possible world semantics

URI

http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/events/camb-grad-conf-2016
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/71314

Conference Name

Ninth Annual Cambridge Graduate Conference on the Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic (2016)

Collections

Department of Philosophy, Conference / Seminar

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Citation Formats

O. Akçelik, “A Solution to the Paradox of Idealization in Modal Epistemic Languages,” presented at the Ninth Annual Cambridge Graduate Conference on the Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic (2016), Cambridge, Kanada, 2016, Accessed: 00, 2021. [Online]. Available: http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/events/camb-grad-conf-2016.