Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

The determination argument tries to establish that a sentence’s meaning is at least a truth-condition. This argument is supposed to rest on innocent premises that even a deflationist about truth can accept. The determination argument comes in a metaphysical and an epistemological version. In this paper we will focus on the epistemological version. We will argue that the apparently innocent first premise of the epistemological version of this argument is true only if understood in a way that is actually question-begging. If it is understood in a weaker sense (which we take to be the intended sense), it loses its innocence and should be rejected by a truth-deflationist.