Phi 369 Sp12

Reading guide for Fri. 4/27: Cory D. Wright, “On the Functionalization of Pluralist Approaches to Truth,” §4 (on JSTOR at 20118579?seq=13, pp. 13-23)
 

This last section lays out three problems with a functionalist version of alethic pluralism. Wright will sound pretty negative, but look at the last paragraph of the article before deciding that he has written off the whole approach.

The argument of §4.1 may recall a line of argument in §2.3 (pp. 9-10) according to which weak alethic pluralism is not really pluralistic in the end: if the property of truth is characterized by a single functional role, why isn’t this just a form of monism? But notice the qualification on p. 15 (“albeit one …”).

The problem posed in §4.2 is more directly related to functionalism. I’d trace it to the fact that the problem (regarding the mind/body relation) that functionalism was originally designed to handle wasn’t a problem of finding a third alternative to a one/many dichotomy. More concretely, Wright extends the analogy with the concept of “head of state” (see §3, p. 11) in a way that exposes the issue. (Functionalism was designed to show how offices like “head of state” are not entities apart from the people filling them, not to point to some one crucial property that the various executives all share.)

The final problem, in §4.3, is closely related but focuses on the difficulty of fixing the set of platitudes that define the common role of all the many truth properties. I’d encourage you to look back at Crispin Wright’s description of his “minimalist conception of truth” and see if you think it suffers from the difficulties Cory Wright points to here.