Pretense and Pathology

In this book Bradley Armour-Garb and James A. Woodbridge distinguish various species of fictionalism locating and defending their own version of philosophical fictionalism. Addressing semantic and philosophical puzzles that arise from ordinary language they consider such issues as the problem of non-being plural identity claims mental-attitude ascriptions meaning attributions and truth-talk. They consider ''deflationism about truth'' explaining why deflationists should be fictionalists and show how their philosophical fictionalist account of truth-talk underwrites a dissolution of the Liar Paradox and its kin. They further explore the semantic notions of reference and predicate-satisfaction showing how philosophical fictionalism can also resolve puzzles that these notions appear to present. Their critical examination of fictionalist approaches in philosophy together with the development and application of their own brand of philosophical fictionalism will be of great interest to scholars and upper-level students of philosophy of language metaphysics philosophical logic philosophy of mind epistemology and linguistics.