Thomas Schindler
I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam and Principal Investigator of the ERC Starting Grant project "GENERALISE". Previously, I held positions as a Research Associate at the University of Bristol, as a Marie Curie Fellow at the Institute for Logic, Language, and Computation at the University of Amsterdam, and as a Junior Research Fellow at Clare College, University of Cambridge. I obtained my PhD from the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP), LMU Munich, working under the supervision of Hannes Leitgeb.
My research interests are in philosophical logic (semantic and logical paradoxes, type-free theories), philosophy of logic (truth, deflationism, absolute generality), metaphysics (properties, metaontology), philosophy of language (theories of meaning, rule-following), and philosophy of mathematics (neo-logicism, nominalism). I also have a huge interest in the philosophy of Schopenhauer.
Supervisors: Hannes Leitgeb
My research interests are in philosophical logic (semantic and logical paradoxes, type-free theories), philosophy of logic (truth, deflationism, absolute generality), metaphysics (properties, metaontology), philosophy of language (theories of meaning, rule-following), and philosophy of mathematics (neo-logicism, nominalism). I also have a huge interest in the philosophy of Schopenhauer.
Supervisors: Hannes Leitgeb
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Papers by Thomas Schindler
This paper outlines an account of number based on the numerical equivalence schema (NES), which consists of all sentences of the form #x.F x = n iff ∃ n x F x, where # is the number-of operator and ∃ n is defined in standard Russellian fashion. In the first part of the paper I point out some analogies between the NES and the T-schema for truth. In light of these analogies, I formulate a minimalist account of numbers, based on the NES, that strongly parallels the minimalist (deflationary) account of truth. One may be tempted to develop the minimalist account in a fictionalist direction, according to which arithmetic is useful but untrue, if taken at face value. In the second part I argue that this suggestion is not as attractive as it may appear at first. The NES suffers from a similar problem as the T-schema: it is deductively weak and does not enable the derivation of any non-trivial generalisations. In the third part of the paper I explore some strategies to deal with the generalisation problem, drawing again inspiration from the literature on truth. In closing this paper, I briefly compare the minimalist to some other accounts of number.
Second, two requirements that any deflationist truth theory intended to serve a logical purpose must satisfy are put forward. These requirements, it is argued, suggest that (i) many well-known compositional and Tarskian theories are acceptable from a deflationist standpoint (including CT); (ii) certain other popular theories of truth (including KF and FS) are not similarly acceptable; (iii) there are no conclusive reasons to impose a conservativeness requirement on deflationary theories of truth.
to express so-called in nite conjunctions. Several authors claim that the
truth predicate can serve this function only if it is fully disquotational
(transparent), which leads to triviality in classical logic. As a conse-
quence, many have concluded that classical logic should be rejected. The
purpose of this paper is threefold. First, we consider two accounts avail-
able in the literature of what it means to express in nite conjunctions
with a truth predicate and argue that they fail to support the necessity
of transparency for that purpose. Second, we show that, with the aid
of some regimentation, many expressive functions of the truth predicate
can actually be performed using truth principles that are consistent in
classical logic. Finally, we suggest a reconceptualisation of de ationism,
according to which the principles that govern the use of the truth pred-
icate in natural language are largely irrelevant for the question of what
formal theory of truth we should adopt. Many philosophers think that
the paradoxes pose a special problem for de ationists; we will argue, on
the contrary, that de ationists are in a much better position to deal with
the paradoxes than their opponents.
sentences of the system of ramified analysis up to \epsilon_0. We also give alternative axiomatizations of
Kripke's (1975) theory of truth (Strong Kleene and supervaluational version) and show that they are at
least as strong as the Kripke-Feferman system KF and Cantini's VF, respectively.
Bookchapters by Thomas Schindler
This paper outlines an account of number based on the numerical equivalence schema (NES), which consists of all sentences of the form #x.F x = n iff ∃ n x F x, where # is the number-of operator and ∃ n is defined in standard Russellian fashion. In the first part of the paper I point out some analogies between the NES and the T-schema for truth. In light of these analogies, I formulate a minimalist account of numbers, based on the NES, that strongly parallels the minimalist (deflationary) account of truth. One may be tempted to develop the minimalist account in a fictionalist direction, according to which arithmetic is useful but untrue, if taken at face value. In the second part I argue that this suggestion is not as attractive as it may appear at first. The NES suffers from a similar problem as the T-schema: it is deductively weak and does not enable the derivation of any non-trivial generalisations. In the third part of the paper I explore some strategies to deal with the generalisation problem, drawing again inspiration from the literature on truth. In closing this paper, I briefly compare the minimalist to some other accounts of number.
Second, two requirements that any deflationist truth theory intended to serve a logical purpose must satisfy are put forward. These requirements, it is argued, suggest that (i) many well-known compositional and Tarskian theories are acceptable from a deflationist standpoint (including CT); (ii) certain other popular theories of truth (including KF and FS) are not similarly acceptable; (iii) there are no conclusive reasons to impose a conservativeness requirement on deflationary theories of truth.
to express so-called in nite conjunctions. Several authors claim that the
truth predicate can serve this function only if it is fully disquotational
(transparent), which leads to triviality in classical logic. As a conse-
quence, many have concluded that classical logic should be rejected. The
purpose of this paper is threefold. First, we consider two accounts avail-
able in the literature of what it means to express in nite conjunctions
with a truth predicate and argue that they fail to support the necessity
of transparency for that purpose. Second, we show that, with the aid
of some regimentation, many expressive functions of the truth predicate
can actually be performed using truth principles that are consistent in
classical logic. Finally, we suggest a reconceptualisation of de ationism,
according to which the principles that govern the use of the truth pred-
icate in natural language are largely irrelevant for the question of what
formal theory of truth we should adopt. Many philosophers think that
the paradoxes pose a special problem for de ationists; we will argue, on
the contrary, that de ationists are in a much better position to deal with
the paradoxes than their opponents.
sentences of the system of ramified analysis up to \epsilon_0. We also give alternative axiomatizations of
Kripke's (1975) theory of truth (Strong Kleene and supervaluational version) and show that they are at
least as strong as the Kripke-Feferman system KF and Cantini's VF, respectively.