Two Senses of Massive Truth in Donald Davidson's Philosophy

Authors

  • Pablo Melogno Universidad de la República
    Profesor de Filosofía en el Instituto de Profesores Artigas. Licenciado en Psicología por la Facultad de Psicología de la Universidad de la República. Profesor Adjunto de Historia de la Ciencia y Epistemología en la Escuela Universitaria de Bibliotecología y Ciencias Afines de la Universidad de la República. Ha publicado artículos en temas de epistemología, innovación e historia de la ciencia, en revistas y volúmenes colectivos de Uruguay, Brasil, Argentina, España, México y Venezuela.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18800/arete.201202.004

Keywords:

Davidson, belief, massive truth, massive error, skepticism

Abstract

The present paper proposes a critical revision of the massive truth notion, in the context of Donald Davidson’s criticism to skepticism. It´s distinguished in Davidson’s work a cuantitative sense and a cualitative sense of the massive truth, asserting that the first one has been more frequently used and has had just an intuitive level of elucidation. The main problems associated to the cuantitative notion of massive truth are revised in relation to the quantification of beliefs, the detection of error on a background of truth and the application of the Davidsonian methodology to non perceptual beliefs. Over this revision it is proposed the substitution of the cuantitative notion of massive truth for a cualitative notion, and are analized its advantages over eventual skeptical objections.

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How to Cite

Melogno, P. (2012). Two Senses of Massive Truth in Donald Davidson’s Philosophy. Areté, 24(2), 309–322. https://doi.org/10.18800/arete.201202.004

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Articles