LAST CALL FOR REGISTRATION
Workshop on Truth, Definability and Quantification into Sentence 
Position
[in person and online via Zoom]
27 and 28 September 2024, University of Vienna
Jointly organised by Max Kölbel, Julio de Rizzo and Benjamin Schnieder
Speakers: Cheryl Misak, Poppy Mankowitz, Paul Horwich, Peter Fritz, 
Wolfgang Künne, Arvid Båve, Torsten Odland, Bradley Armour-Garb & James 
Woodbridge
For more information, abstracts and registration visit: 
https://truth-workshop.phl.univie.ac.at/ [there have been slight changes 
to the programme]
For those unable to attend in person, there will be the possibility to 
join passively via Zoom. If you would like to attend the workshop via 
Zoom, please contact us via e-mail: truthwien(a)gmail.com
Workshop description: Can truth be defined? Frege argued that it 
couldn't. Ramsey argued that defining it would be easy if only we had an 
analysis of judgement. Today Horwich claims that truth cannot be defined 
explicitly because doing so would require quantification into sentence 
position and such quantification is not coherent. Instead he proposes a 
"minimal theory" of truth, which comprises all the unproblematic 
instances of the equivalence schema. Künne, by contrast, argues that 
quantification into sentence position is coherent and may actually be 
part of some natural languages. Künne uses such quantification to define 
truth explicitly: ∀x (x is true iff ∃p ((x is the proposition that p) & 
p)). Or in English: a representation (belief, assertion etc) is true 
just if things are as it represents them as being. Künne claims also to 
find this definition in Frank Ramsey's posthumous work, which, as an 
exegetical claim, is not uncontroversial.
Is truth definable? Is propositional quantification coherent? Do natural 
languages involve propositional quantification, and in what sense? What 
do the answers to these questions mean for philosophical attempts to 
define or explain truth? Is truth redundant if explicitly definable? Not 
redundant if not explicitly definable? We are interested in these and 
related questions (broadly conceived).
This workshop is supported by the FWF Cluster of Excellence project 
"Knowledge in Crisis", the FWF project "Truth is Grounded in Facts"
and 
the University of Vienna.