How to solve the problem of mixed conjunctions

Abstract

The problem of mixed conjunctions, due to Tappolet (2000), threatens to undermine alethic pluralism by showing that it cannot account for the truth of conjunctions in which the conjuncts spring from different domains of discourse. In this paper I argue, firstly, that the problem is not just a problem for alethic pluralism and, secondly, that the problem can be solved. Alethic pluralism is the thesis that sentences or propositions can be true in different ways. This view is attractive if we want to think of sentences from different domains of discourse as having the potential to be true, even if some domains seem to resist the characteristic construal of truth as correspondence to a fact, with mathematical and moral discourse being the paradigmatic examples. Crispin Wright (1992, 2003) sets out one such form of pluralism. Wright advocates a plurality of truth properties – each tied to a specific domain of discourse – and states that a truth property for a domain can be identified by its compliance with a basic set of platitudes about truth, such as ‘to assert is to present as true’, ‘a statement can be true but not justified and vice versa’.1 Thus, on Wright's view, the property that a proposition must have in order to be true will depend on the domain of discourse from which it springs.

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