PREPRINTS, ARTICLES SUBMITTED, OR PUBLISHED
"A Mathematical Theorem between Classical and Nonclassical Truth" (with B. Eastaugh)
Submitted.
"Non-classical Solutions to the Liar Paradox III: Substructurality",
Forthcoming in The Cambridge Companion to the Liar Paradox, edited by L. Rossi.
"A Reflection Principle for Kripke-Feferman Truth" (with M. Fischer and M. Piazza)
Submitted.
"Truth" (with Lorenzo Rossi)
Forthcoming in Handbook of Three-Valued Logic, MIT Press, edited by Paul Egré and Lorenzo Rossi.
"Implicit Commitment in a General Setting" (with Mateusz Łełyk)
Forthcoming in Journal of Logic and Computation.
ArXiv version.
"Non-contractive logics, Paradoxes, and Multiplicative Quantifiers" (with Mario Piazza and Matteo Tesi)
Forthcoming in The Review of Symbolic Logic.
ArXiv version.
"The Dream of Recapture"
Analysis.
Submitted Version, Published Version (OA).
"Gaps, Gluts, and Theoretical Equivalence"
Synthese.
Submitted Version, Published Version (OA).
"A Theory of Implicit Commitment for Mathematical Theories" (with Mateusz Łełyk)
Synthese.
Preprint. Published version (OA).
"Systems for Non-Reflexive Consequence". (With Lorenzo Rossi)
Forthcoming in Studia Logica.
Submitted Version.
"A Guide to the Unified Approach to Truth, Modality, and Paradox". (With Johannes Stern)
Published Manuscript (OA).
"Nonclassical truth with classical strength. A proof-theoretic analysis of compositional truth over HYPE". (With Martin Fischer and Pablo Dopico Fernandez).
Review of Symbolic Logic, Online First.
Preprint. Published Version.
"On Logical and Scientific Strength". (With Luca Incurvati)
Submitted.
"Cut elimination for systems of transparent truth with restricted initial sequents".
Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 62(4): 619-642 (November 2021). DOI: 10.1215/00294527-2021-0032.
Preprint. Published Version.
"The modal logics of Kripke-Feferman Truth" (with Johannes Stern).
The Journal of Symbolic Logic. Volume 86 Issue 1, 2021.
Preprint. Published Version.
"Fix, Epress, Quantify. Disquotation after its logic".
Mind, Volume 130, Issue 519, July 2021, Pages 727–757.
Preprint, Published Version.
"How to Adopt a Logic" (with Daniel Cohnitz).
Forthcoming in Dialectica. Draft.
"Hypatia's Silence. Truth, Justification, and Entitlement" (with M. Fischer and L. Horsten).
Noûs, 55:1 (2021) 62–85.
Abstract,
Hartry Field distinguished two concepts of type-free truth: scientific truth and disquotational truth. We argue that scientific type-free truth cannot do justificatory work in the foundations of mathematics. We also present an argument, based on Crispin Wright's theory of cognitive projects and entitlement, that disquotational truth can do justificatory work in the foundations of mathematics. The price to pay for this is that the concept of disquotational truth requires non-classical logical treatment.
Preprint.
Published Version.
"Iterated reflection over full disquotational truth" (with M. Fischer and L. Horsten),
Journal of Logic and Computation, Volume 27, Issue 8, 1 December 2017, pp. 2631-2651.
Abstract,
Iterated reflection principles have been employed extensively to unfold epistemic commitments that are incurred by accepting
a mathematical theory. Recently this has been applied to theories of truth. The idea is to start with a collection of Tarski biconditionals
and arrive by iterated reflection at strong compositional truth theories. In the context of classical logic, it is
incoherent to adopt an initial truth theory in which A and ‘A is true’ are inter-derivable. In this article, we show how in the
context of a weaker logic, which we call Basic De Morgan Logic, we can coherently start with such a fully disquotational
truth theory and arrive at a strong compositional truth theory by applying a natural uniform reflection principle a finite number
of times.
Preprint,
DOI,
BibTex.
@article{fhn17,
author={Martin Fischer and Carlo Nicolai and Leon Horsten},
year={2017},
title={Iterated reflection over full disquotational truth},
publisher={Oxford University Press},
journal={Journal of Logic and Computation},
volume= {27},
issue= {8},
date={December 2017},
pages={2631-2651},
}
"The implicit commitment of arithmetical theories and its semantic core" (with M. Piazza).
Erkenntnis 84, pages 913–937(2019).
Abstract,
According to the implicit commitment thesis, once accepting a mathematical formal
system S, one is implicitly committed to additional resources not immediately available
in S. Traditionally, this thesis has been understood as entailing that, in accepting S, we
are bound to accept reflection principles for S and therefore claims in the language of S
that are not derivable in S itself. It has recently become clear, however, that such
reading of the implicit commitment thesis cannot be compatible with well-established
positions in the foundation of mathematics which consider a specific theory S as selfjustifying
and doubt the legitimacy of any principle that is not derivable S: examples are
Tait's finitism and the role played in it by Primitive Recursive Arithmetic, Isaacson's
thesis and Peano Arithmetic, Nelson's ultrafinitism and sub-exponential arithmetical
systems. This casts doubts on the very adequacy of the implicit commitment thesis for
arithmetical theories. In the paper we show that such foundational standpoints are
nonetheless compatible with the implicit commitment thesis. We also show that they
can even be compatible with genuine soundness extensions of S with suitable forms of
reflection. The analysis we propose is as follows: when accepting of system S, we are
bound to accept a fixed set of principles extending S and expressing minimal
soundness requirements for S, such as the fact that the non-logical axioms of S are
true. We call this invariant component the semantic core of implicit commitment. But
there is also a variable component of implicit commitment that crucially depends on the
justification given for our acceptance of S in which, for instance, may or may not
appear (proof-theoretic) reflection principles for S. We claim that the proposed
framework regulates in a natural and uniform way our acceptance of different
arithmetical theories.
Preprint,
DOI.
"On expressive power over arithmetic",
forthcoming in M. Piazza and G. Pulcini (eds), Truth, Existence, and Explanation - FilMat Studies in the Philosophy of Mathematics.
Abstract,
The paper is concerned with the ne boundary between expressive
power and reducibility of semantic and intensional notions in the context of arithmetical
theories. I will consider three notions of reduction of a theory characterizing
a semantic or a modal notion to the underlying base theory – relative interpretability,
speed up, conservativeness – and highlight a series of cases where
moving between equally satisfactory base theories and keeping the semantic or
modal principles xed yields incompatible results. I then consider the impact of
the non-uniform behaviour of these reducibility relations on the philosophical
signicance we usually attribute to them.
Preprint.
"Provably true sentences across axiomatizations of Kripke's theory of truth",
Studia Logica, Volume 106, Issue 1, pp. 101-130, February 2018.
Abstract,
We study the relationships between two clusters of axiomatizations of Kripke’s xed-point models
for languages containing a self-applicable truth predicate. e rst cluster is represented by what we will call
‘PKF-like’ theories, originating in recent work Halbach and Horsten, whose axioms and rules (in Basic De
Morgan Logic) are all valid in xed-point models; the second by ‘KF-like’ theories rst introduced by Solomon
Feferman, that lose this property but reect the classicality of the metatheory in which Kripke’s construction
is carried out. We show that to any natural system in one cluster – corresponding to natural variations on
induction schemata – there is a corresponding system in the other proving the same sentences true, addressing
a problem le open by Halbach and Horsten and accomplishing a suitably modied version of the project
sketched by Reinhardt aiming at an instrumental reading of classical theories of self-applicable truth.
Preprint,
DOI,
BibTex.
@article{nic17,
author={Carlo Nicolai},
year={2017},
title={Provably true sentences across axiomatizations of Kripke's theory of truth},
publisher={Springer},
journal={Studia Logica},
note={Online-First, DOI: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11225-017-9727-y},
}
"Principles for object-linguistic consequence: from logical to irreflexive" (with Lorenzo Rossi),
Journal of Philosophical Logic, Volume 47, Issue 3, pp 549-577.
Abstract,
We discuss the principles for a primitive, object-linguistic notion of consequence
proposed by [Beall and Murzi 2013] that yield a version of Curry’s paradox. We propose and study several strategies to weaken these principles and overcome paradox: all these strategies are based on the intuition that the object-linguistic consequence predicate internalizes whichever meta-linguistic notion of consequence we accept in the rst place. To these solutions will correspond dierent conceptions of consequence. In one possible reading of these principles, they give rise to a notion of logical consequence: we study the corresponding theory of validity (and some of its variants) by showing that it is conservative over a wide range of base theories: this result is achieved via a well-behaved form of local interpretation. The theory of logical consequence is based on a restriction of the introduction rule for the consequence predicate. To unrestrictedly maintain this principle, we develop a conception of object-linguistic consequence, which we call grounded consequence, that displays a restriction of the structural rule of reflexivity. This construction is obtained by generalizing Saul Kripke’s inductive theory of truth (strong Kleene version). Grounded validity will be shown to satisfy several desirable principles for a naïve, self-applicable notion of consequence.
Preprint,
DOI,
BibTex.
@article{niro17,
author={Carlo Nicolai and Lorenzo Rossi},
year={2017},
title={Principles for object-linguistic consequence: from logical to irreflexive},
publisher={Springer},
journal={Journal of Philosophical Logic},
note={Online-First, DOI: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11225-017-9727-y},
}
"On the costs of nonclassical logic" (with Volker Halbach),
Journal of Philosophical Logic, Volume 47, Issue 2, pp 227–257.
Abstract,
Solutions to semantic paradoxes often involve restrictions of classical logic
for semantic vocabulary. In the paper we investigate the costs of these restrictions in a
model case. In particular, we fix two systems of truth capturing the same conception
of truth: (a variant) of the system KF of [Feferman 1991] formulated in classical
logic, and (a variant of) the system PKF of [Halbach & Horsten 2006], formulated
in basic De Morgan logic. The classical system is known to be much stronger than
the nonclassical one. We assess the reasons for this asymmetry by showing that the
truth theoretic principles of PKF cannot be blamed: PKF with induction restricted
to non-semantic vocabulary coincides in fact with what the restricted version of KF
proves true.
Preprint,
DOI,
BibTex.
@article{niro17,
author={Volker Halbach and Carlo Nicolai},
year={2017},
title={On the costs of nonclassical logic},
publisher={Springer},
journal={Journal of Philosophical Logic},
note={Online-First, DOI: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10992-017-9424-3},
}
"Equivalences for truth predicates",
The Review of Symbolic Logic, Volume 10, Issue 2 June 2017 , pp. 322-356.
Abstract,
One way to study and understand the notion of truth is to examine principles thatwe are willing to associate with truth, often because they conform to a pre-theoretical or to a semi-formal characterization of this concept. In comparing different collections of such principles, one requires formally precise notions of inter-theoretic reduction that are also adequate to compare these conceptual aspects. In this work I study possible ways to make precise the relation of conceptual equivalence between notions of truth associated with collections of principles of truth. In doing so, I will consider refinements and strengthenings of the notion of relative truth-definability proposed
by (Fujimoto 2010): in particular I employ suitable variants of notions of equivalence of theories considered in (Visser 2006; Friedman & Visser 2014) to show that there are better candidates than mutual truth-definability for the role of sufficient condition for conceptual equivalence between the semantic notions associated with the theories. In the concluding part of the paper, I extend the techniques introduced in the first and show that there is a precise sense in which ramified truth (either disquotational or compositional) does not correspond to iterations of comprehension.
Preprint,
DOI,
BibTex.
@article{niro17,
author={Carlo Nicolai},
year={2017},
title={Equivalences for truth predicates},
journal={The Review of Symbolic Logic},
note={Online-First, DOI: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10992-017-9424-3},
}
"Necessary Truths and Supervaluations",
in De Florio and Giordani (eds.), From arithmetic to metaphysics. A path through philosophical logic, pp. 309-330, De Gruyter, Philosophical Analysis, 2018.
Abstract,
Starting with a trustworthy theory T, Galvan (1992) suggests to read off,
from the usual hierarchy of theories determined by consistency strength, a
finer-grained hierarchy in which theories higher up are capable of ‘explaining’,
though not fully justifying, our commitment to theories lower down. One way
to ascend Galvan’s ‘hierarchy of explanation’ is to formalize soundness proofs:
to this extent it often suffices to assume a full theory of truth for the theory
T whose soundness is at stake. In this paper, we investigate the possibility
of an extension of this method. Our ultimate goal will be to extend T not
only with truth axioms, but with a combination of axioms for predicates for
truth and necessity. We first consider two alternative strategies for providing
possible worlds semantics for necessity as a predicate, one based on classical
logic, the other on a supervaluationist interpretation of necessity. We will then
formulate a deductive system of truth and necessity in classical logic that is
sound with respect to the given (nonclassical) semantics.
Preprint,
BibTex.
@incollection{nic18,
author={Carlo Nicolai},
year={2018},
title={Necessary Truths and Supervaluations},
booktitle = {From arithmetic to metaphysics. A path through philosophical logic},
editor= {C. De Florio and A. Giordani},
series = {Philosophical Analysis},
pages= {309--330},
publisher={DeGruyter},
}
"More on systems of truth and predicative comprehension", in F. Boccuni and A. Sereni (eds), Philosophy of Mathematics: Objectivity, Cognition, and Proof, Boston Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, chapter 14.
Abstract,
Solutions to semantic paradoxes often involve restrictions of classical logic
for semantic vocabulary. In the paper we investigate the costs of these restrictions in a
model case. In particular, we fix two systems of truth capturing the same conception
of truth: (a variant) of the system KF of [Feferman 1991] formulated in classical
logic, and (a variant of) the system PKF of [Halbach & Horsten 2006], formulated
in basic De Morgan logic. The classical system is known to be much stronger than
the nonclassical one. We assess the reasons for this asymmetry by showing that the
truth theoretic principles of PKF cannot be blamed: PKF with induction restricted
to non-semantic vocabulary coincides in fact with what the restricted version of KF
proves true.
Preprint,
DOI,
BibTex.
@incollection{nic16b,
author={Carlo Nicolai},
year={2016},
title={More on systems of truth and predicative comprehension},
booktitle = {Objectivity, Realism, and Proof. FilMat Studies in the Philosophy of Mathematics},
editor= {F. Boccuni and A. Sereni},
series = {Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science},
chapter= {14},
publisher={Springer},
}
"A note on typed truth and consistency assertions",
Journal of Philosophical Logic 45(1), 2016: pp. 89-119.
Abstract,
In the paper we investigate typed (mainly compositional) axiomatizations
of the truth predicate in which the axioms of truth come with a built-in, minimal
and self-sufficient machinery to talk about syntactic aspects of an arbitrary base
theory. Expanding previous works of the author and building on recent works of
Albert Visser and Richard Heck, we give a precise characterization of these systems
by investigating the strict relationships occurring between them, arithmetized model
constructions in weak arithmetical systems and suitable set existence axioms. The framework considered will give rise to some methodological remarks on the construction of truth theories and provide us with a privileged point of view to analyze the notion of truth arising from compositional principles in a typed setting.
Preprint,
DOI,
BibTex.
@article{nic16a,
author={Carlo Nicolai},
year={2015},
title={A note on typed truth and consistency assertions},
journal={Journal of Philosophical Logic},
volume={45},
issue={1},
pages={89-119},
}
"Deflationary truth and the ontology of expressions",
Synthese 192(12): pp. 4031-4055.
Abstract,
The existence of a close connection between results on axiomatic truth and
the analysis of truth-theoretic deflationism is nowadays widely recognized. The first
attempt to make such link precise can be traced back to the so-called conservativeness
argument due to Leon Horsten, Stewart Shapiro and Jeffrey Ketland: by employing
standard Gödelian phenomena, they concluded that deflationism is untenable as any
adequate theory of truth leads to consequences that were not achievable by the base
theory alone. In the paper I highlight, as Shapiro and Ketland, the irreducible nature of
truth axioms with respect to their base theories. But, I argue, this does not immediately
delineate a notion of truth playing a substantial role in philosophical or scientific
explanations. I first offer a refinement of Hartry Field’s reaction to the conservativeness
argument by distinguishing between metatheoretic and object-theoretic consequences
of the theory of truth and address some possible rejoinders. In the resulting picture, truth
is an irreducible tool for metatheoretic ascent. How robust is this characterizaton? I test
it by considering: (i) a recent example, due to Leon Horsten, of the alleged explanatory
role played by the truth predicate in the derivation of Fitch’s paradox; (ii) an essential
weakening of theories of truth analyzed in the first part of the paper.
Preprint,
DOI,
BibTex.
@article{nic15,
author={Carlo Nicolai},
year={2015},
title={Deflationary truth and the ontology of expressions},
journal={Synthese},
volume={192},
issue={12},
pages={4031-4055},
}
"Axiomatic Truth, Syntax, and Metatheoretic Reasoning" (with G.E. Leigh),
The Review of Symbolic Logic 6(4), 2013: pp. 631-636.
Abstract,
Following recent developments in the literature on axiomatic theories of truth, we
investigate an alternative to the widespread habit of formalizing the syntax of the object-language into the object-language itself. We first argue for the proposed revision, elaborating philosophical evidences in favor of it. Secondly, we present a general framework for axiomatic theories of truth with ‘disentangled’ theories of syntax. Different choices of the object theory O will be considered. Moreover, some strengthenings of these theories will be introduced: we will consider extending the theories by the addition of coding axioms or by extending the schemas of O, if present, to the entire vocabulary of our theory of truth. Finally, we touch on the philosophical consequences that the theories described can have on the debate about the metaphysical status of the truth predicate and on the formalization of our informal metatheoretic reasoning.
Preprint,
DOI,
BibTex.
@article{nile13,
author={Graham Leigh and Carlo Nicolai},
year={2013},
title={Axiomatic Truth, Syntax, and Metatheoretic Reasoning},
journal={The Review of Symbolic Logic},
volume={6},
issue={4},
pages={613-636},
}
MONOGRAPHS
Truth, Deflationism, and the Ontology of Expressions. An Axiomatic Study.
Dissertation, University of Oxford, 2014.
Truth and Logic. Deflationism and the Logical Force of Truth.
In preparation.
EDITED BOOKS
Modes of Truth. The Unified Approach to Truth, Modalities, and Paradox.
Edited Collection (with Johannes Stern). Routledge 2020.
ARTICLES IN PROGRESS
"Indecomposable Linear Orders and Theories of Kripkean Truth" (with Benedict Eastaugh). Working Draft.
E-mail: carlonicolai6@gmail.com; carlo.nicolai@kcl.ac.uk
Mail: Department of Philosophy, Room 602 Philosophy Building, Strand Campus, London WC2R 2LS.