This book focuses on disquotational and conservative axiomatic truth theories. As a matter of fact, disquotation and conservativity have been advocated in the literature (usually separately) as either commitments of the deflationary standpoint or at least as ideas that give meaning to slogans of the lightness of truth. Since I view deflationism as an array of diverse conceptions only loosely connected by the theme of the insubstantiality of truth, the idea of ‘commitments’ is not appealing. Nonetheless, it is also my view that the approach to truth which takes disquotation and conservativity as central features of truth theories is indeed natural and fundamentally correct.

Any defence of disquotation and conservativity has to overcome two serious objections which have been raised in the literature: the generalisation problem and the conservativeness argument. As I see it, this is also the point at which disquotation and conservativity meet and where they can be seen to fit together. Namely, the most serious reservations against both standpoints turn out to be very closely related – so closely that they can be overcome by a uniform epistemic strategy advocated in the final chapter of this book.

Indeed, I do think that the proposed epistemic strategy permits the deflationist to vindicate the thesis of the lightness of truth. With such a weapon at hand, the deductive weakness of disquotational conservative theories of truth is no longer a concern. “No-one will drive us out of Tarski's truth-theoretic paradise”, one critic has objected. By taking the approach presented here, I believe that the road to Tarski's paradise is now open.