The Knowability Thesis
Rule (C) is generally held to be at fault rather than any of the other logical principles employed. It may be contended that this rule does not faithfully translate the idea that all truths are knowable, and that rule (C) should not apply unrestrictedly. Kvanvig contends that this represents an illicit substitution into a modal context.
Berit Brogaard and Joseph Salerno offer a criticism of Kvanvig's proposal and then defend a new proposal according to which quantified expressions play a special role in modal contexts. On the account of this special role articulated by Stanley and Szabo, they propose a solution to the knowability paradoxes. Another way to resolve the paradox is to restrict the paradox only to atomic sentences. Brogaard and Salerno have argued against this strategy in several papers that have appeared in journals such as Analysis and American Philosophical Quarterly.
Read more about this topic: Fitch's Paradox Of Knowability
Famous quotes containing the word thesis:
“Some have said that the thesis [of indeterminacy] is a consequence of my behaviorism. Some have said that it is a reductio ad absurdum of my behaviorism. I disagree with this second point, but I agree with the first. I hold further that the behaviorism approach is mandatory. In psychology one may or may not be a behaviorist, but in linguistics one has no choice.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)