Truth Conference

I've just come across details of this conference on truth (Truth: Current Debates) being held at the University of Connecticut (where Michael P. Lynch is based) from May 15 - 17 2009. Too late for me to register and get reasonably priced flights. Darn. Anyway, the questions around which the event is organized are very interesting and should make for a fascinating conference (and hopefully follow-up publication!). The conference site reads:

"Some of the most basic questions concerning truth ask for its nature: in what does truth consist? Does it even have a nature? And is that nature one or many?

"The objective of this conference is to foster discussion that will shed new light on the nature of truth. A particular emphasis will be placed on how one might oppose traditional approaches to truth according to which the nature of truth (i) is to be accounted for in terms of a substantive property (such as correspondence or coherence) and (ii) is uniform across all truth-apt domains. Among the issues to be addressed in relation to this question are the following:

• What is the most viable way of rejecting (i), i.e. what is the strongest version of deflationism about truth?
• What is the most viable way of rejecting (ii) i.e. what is the strongest version of pluralism about truth?
• What is the most viable way of combining a rejections of (i) and (ii), i.e. what is the strongest version of deflationary pluralism about truth?
• How does a commitment to deflationism, pluralism or a combination of the two impact our understanding of other philosophically important concepts, such as meaning, content, representation, valid inference, knowledge, and the normativity of truth? Depending on one's commitments, must such accounts be "deflated", "pluralized", or abandoned altogether?
• What, if any, is the relationship between pluralism about truth and pluralism about logic?
• What, if any, is the relationship between pluralism about truth and pluralism about ontology?
• What objections are there to pluralism? To deflationism? To deflationary pluralism?"

The line-up of speakers is particularly impressive and includes JC Beall (Connecticut), Marian David (Notre Dame), Pascal Engel (Geneva), Patrick Greenough (St. Andrews/Arché), Max Kölbel (Birmingham), Michael Lynch (Connecticut), Vann McGee (MIT), Gila Sher (University of California at San Diego) and Crispin Wright (St. Andrews/Arché, NYU).