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ANALYSIS 61.1 JANUARY 2001
Victor's error
MICHAEL DUMMETT
where A is any sentence, 'K' abbreviates 'it is known that' and the pos-
sibility operator 0 is suitably interpreted. Can Victor allow that some state-
ment B might be true, and yet it was not and never will be known that B?
He does allow this: that was the whole point of his inserting the modal
element in his characterization of truth. But now substitute 'B & -,K(B)'
for 'A' in (*). It is obviously impossible that anyone should know both that
B and that it will never be known that B. By contraposition, Victor should
infer that it cannot ever hold good both that B and that it will never be
known that B. This is the paradox of knowability.
Victor appeared to be putting forward a coherent conception of truth,
whether acceptable or not. But the paradox seems to show it incoherent.
What mistake has Victor made? His mistake was to give a blanket charac-
terization of truth, rather than an inductive one. He needed to distinguish
some class of basic statements, and then, where 'Tr(A)' abbreviates 'it is
true that A', to lay down:
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2 MICHAEL DUMMETT
B & K(B)
both that it could have been or could later be known that B and that in fa
it never has been and never will be known that B, but there is now no con
tradiction in this; that was precisely the type of situation he wished to env
age. The apparent unreasonable exportation of 'it is known that' acr
conjunction was effected by Victor's careless endorsement of the blan
schema (*). If he is more careful, he can easily avoid the appearance
putting forward an incoherent conception of truth.
New College
Oxford OX1 3BN, UK
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