Abstract
In other works, I’ve proposed a solution to the semantic paradoxes which, at the technical level, basically relies on failure of contraction. I’ve also suggested that, at the philosophical level, contraction fails because of the instability of certain states of affairs. In this paper, I try to make good on that suggestion.
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Acknowledgments
Earlier versions of the material in this paper have been presented in 2014 at the SILFS Workshop Current Trends in the Philosophy of Logic (University of Rome Three) and at the PERSP Metaphysics Seminar (University of Barcelona); in 2015, at the LanCog Seminar (University of Lisbon) and at the Veritas Pluralism, Language and Logic Workshop (Yonsei University); in 2016, at the BA Logic Group WIP Seminar (University of Buenos Aires). I’d like to thank all these audiences for very stimulating comments and discussions. Special thanks go to Eduardo Barrio, Aurélien Darbellay, John Horden, Hannes Leitgeb, Dan López de Sa, José Martínez, Julien Murzi, Francesco Paoli, Nikolaj Pedersen, Lucas Rosenblatt, Sven Rosenkranz, Ricardo Santos, Célia Teixeira, Pilar Terrés, Zach Weber, Jeremy Wyatt, David Yates and two anonymous referees. Special special thanks go to David Ripley, whose open-minded and perceptive feedback throughout the years and the continents has helped me in developing the view I present in the paper. I’m also grateful to the guest editors Riccardo Bruni and Shawn Standefer for inviting me to contribute to this special issue and for their extraordinary support and patience throughout the process, which very fittingly involved a few revisions on my part (I’m also indebted to them for this pun). Thanks guys. At different stages, this study has been funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Intraeuropean Research Fellowship 301493 A Noncontractive Theory of Naive Semantic Properties: Logical Developments and Metaphysical Foundations and by the FCT Research Fellowship IF/01202/2013 Tolerance and Instability: The Substructure of Cognitions, Transitions and Collections. Additionally, the study has been funded by the Russian Academic Excellence Project 5-100. I’ve also benefited from support from the Project CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 CSD2009-00056 of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation Philosophy of Perspectival Thoughts and Facts, from the Project FFI2012-35026 of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competition The Makings of Truth: Nature, Extent, and Applications of Truthmaking, from the Project FFI2015-70707-P of the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness Localism and Globalism in Logic and Semantics and from the FCT Project PTDC/FER-FIL/28442/2017 Companion to Analytic Philosophy 2.
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Zardini, E. Instability and Contraction. J Philos Logic 48, 155–188 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-018-9483-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-018-9483-0