TRUTH WITHOUT CONTRA(DI)CTION

Abstract

The concept oftrutharguably plays a central role in many areas of philosophical theorizing. Yet, what seems to be one of the most fundamental principles governing that concept, i.e. the equivalence between ‘ ‘P’ is true’ and ‘P’, is inconsistent in full classical logic, as shown by thesemantic paradoxes. I propose a new solution to those paradoxes, based on a principled revision of classical logic. Technically, the key idea consists in the rejection of the unrestricted validity of the structural principle ofcontraction. I first motivate philosophically this idea with the metaphysical picture of the states-of-affairs expressed by paradoxical sentences as being distinctively “unstable”. I then proceed to demonstrate that the theory of truth resulting from this metaphysical picture is, in many philosophically interesting respects, surprisingly stronger than most other theories of truth endorsing the equivalence between ‘ ‘P’ is true’ and ‘P’ (for example, the theory vindicates the validity of the traditional laws ofexcluded middleand ofnon-contradiction, and also vindicates the traditional constraint oftruth preservationon logical consequence). I conclude by proving acuteliminationtheorem that shows the consistency of the theory.