Deflationists believe that the question “What is truth?” should be answered not by means of a metaphysical inquiry into the nature of truth, but by figuring out what use we make of the concept of truth, and the word ‘true’, in practice. This article accepts this methodology, and it thereby rejects pluralism about truth that is driven by ontological considerations. However, it shows that there are practical considerations for a pluralism about truth, formulated at the level of use. The theory (...) expounded by this article states that truth is a dual-purpose tool; it can be used as a device for transferring justificatory burdens and, for select areas of discourse, it can also be used as a standard, a norm. This contrast in how truth is used introduces a bifurcation in our discourse that is reminiscent of metaphysical divides traced by more traditional versions of alethic pluralism. However, my pluralism “at the level of use” states that truth is plural solely at the level of use. It is unified at both the conceptual as well as the metaphysical level. At those levels, the theory takes its cue from deflationism. As such, this theory is offered as a midway point and as a potential way forward in the debate between deflationism and pluralism. (shrink)

Although it’s sometimes thought that pluralism about truth is unstable—or, worse, just a non-starter—it’s surprisingly difficult to locate collapsing arguments that conclusively demonstrate either its instability or its inability to get started. This paper exemplifies the point by examining three recent arguments to that effect. However, it ends with a cautionary tale; for pluralism may not be any better off than other traditional theories that face various technical objections, and may be worse off in facing them all.

Traditional inflationary approaches that specify the nature of truth are attractive in certain ways; yet, while many of these theories successfully explain why propositions in certain domains of discourse are true, they fail to adequately specify the nature of truth because they run up against counterexamples when attempting to generalize across all domains. One popular consequence is skepticism about the efficaciousness of inflationary approaches altogether. Yet, by recognizing that the failure to explain the truth of disparate propositions often stems from (...) inflationary approaches' allegiance to alethic monism, pluralist approaches are able to avoid this explanatory inadequacy and the resulting skepticism, though at the cost of inviting other conceptual difficulties. A novel approach, alethic functionalism, attempts to circumvent the problems faced by pluralist approaches while preserving their main insights. Unfortunately, it too generates additional problems---namely, with its suspect appropriation of the multiple realizability paradigm and its platitude-based strategy---that need to be dissolved before it can constitute an adequate inflationary approach to the nature of truth. (shrink)

Some philosophers have argued that truth is a norm of judgement and have provided a variety of formulations of this general thesis. In this paper, I shall side with these philosophers and assume that truth is a norm of judgement. What I am primarily interested in here are two core questions concerning the judgement-truth norm: (i) what are the normative relationships between truth and judgement? And (ii) do these relationships vary or are they constant? I argue for a pluralist picture—what (...) I call Normative Alethic Pluralism (NAP)—according to which (i) there is more than one correct judgement-truth norm and (ii) the normative relationships between truth and judgement vary in relation to the subject matter of the judgement. By means of a comparative analysis of disagreement in three areas of the evaluative domain—refined aesthetics, basic taste and morality—I show that there is an important variability in the normative significance of disagreement—I call this the variability conjecture. By presenting a variation of Lynch’s scope problem for alethic monism, I argue that a monistic approach to the normative function of truth is unable to vindicate the conjecture. I then argue that normative alethic pluralism provides us with a promising model to account for it. (shrink)

It is a fundamental intuition about truth that the conditions under which a sentence is true are given by what the sentence asserts. My aim in this paper is to show that this intuition captures the concept of truth completely and correctly. This is conceptual deflationism, for it does not go beyond what is asserted by a sentence in order to define the truth status of that sentence. This paper, hence, is a defense of deflationism as a conceptual account of (...) truth. This defense is developed in four stages. In the first stage I present a distinction between two types of deflationism, conceptual and metaphysical. This is the central stage of the argument and its main conclusion is that conceptual deflationism when joined with the principle of bivalence is inconsistent with metaphysical deflationism, that is, conceptual deflationism together with bivalence entails a non-deflationary metaphysical account of truth. In the second and third stages of the argument I argue that the totality of the Tarskian biconditionals, when interpreted as definitional biconditionals, offers a description of the nature of truth. In the fourth, and final, stage of the argument I advance a positive case for conceptual deflationism. I explain how the revision theory of truth provides this sort of deflationism with its best evidence: a clear demonstration of its consistency and a compelling argument for its material adequacy. (shrink)

Primitivists about truth maintain that truth cannot be analysed in more fundamental terms. Defences of primitivism date back to the early years of analytic philosophy, being offered by G.E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, and Gottlob Frege. In more recent years, a number of contemporary philosophers—including Donald Davidson, Ernest Sosa, Trenton Merricks, Douglas Patterson, and Jamin Asay—have followed suit, defending their own versions of primitivism. I'll begin by offering a brief history of primitivism, situating each of these views within the landscape of (...) primitivist truth theories and detailing some of their core motivations and apparent shortcomings. To close the discussion, I'll offer a diagnosis of the prospects of primitivism, focusing on the mystery challenge, which has loomed large throughout the history of primitivist truth theories, and the methodology that should be used in evaluating primitivist (and other) truth theories going forward. (shrink)

It's often said that according to deflationary theories of truth, truth is not a ‘substantial’ property. While this is a fine slogan, it is far from transparent what deflationists mean (or ought to mean) in saying that truth is ‘insubstantial’. Focusing so intently upon the concept of truth and the word ‘true’, I argue, deflationists and their critics have been insufficiently attentive to a host of metaphysical complexities that arise for deflationists in connection with the property of truth. My aim (...) is to correct several misunderstandings as to what deflationists are after here—including some harboured by deflationists themselves—and to offer an account of the commitments about truth's nature that they ought to undertake. In developing this account, I focus particularly upon the issue of what metaphysics of truth a Horwichian minimalist ought to adopt. (shrink)

One of the most important “folk” anti-realist thoughts about certain areas of our thought and discourse—basic taste, for instance, or comedy—is that their lack of objectivity crystallises in the possibility of “faultless disagreements”: situations where one party accepts P, another rejects P, and neither is guilty of any kind of mistake of substance or shortcoming of cognitive process. On close inspection, however, it proves challenging to make coherent sense of this idea, and a majority of theorists have come to reject (...) it as incoherent. There are two significant exceptions in the contemporary literature: relativists often hold it up as something of a coup for their view that it can make straightforward sense of faultless disagreement; and the author of this paper has argued (Wright 2006) that making judicious intuitionistic revisions to classical logic can provide resources that suffice to stabilise the notion. The present paper argues that neither relativism nor intuitionism in fact provides a satisfactory account and indicates how an alethic pluralist framework enables us to do better. (shrink)

The paper examines Wright’s attempt to inflate deflationism about truth. It accepts the details of Wright’s argument but contends that it should best be seen as posing a dilemma for the deflationist: either truth is independent of norms of warranted assertibility—in which case it is substantial—or it is not—in which case epistemicism about truth is a consequence. Some concerns about epistemicism are raised in avoiding the second horn. The first is avoided by distinguishing between independence and substantiality and arguing that (...) only the first applies to truth and only the second is worrisome to deflationism. So, despite its sub-title, the following is not a diatribe against Home Rule but a modest defence of deflationism. (shrink)

I defend the view that justified belief is preferable to plain belief only because the former enhances the likelihood that the belief is true: call that sort of justification truth-linked. A collection of philosophical theories either state outright that this is not so, imply it via other doctrines, or adopt a notion of truth that renders the link innocuous. The discussion proceeds as follows. Issues and various positions are outlined, and needed qualifications are entered (parts I-III). We then note general (...) shortcomings of all views rejecting the truth-link, and critically examine a powerful thought experiment underlying the rejection (part IV). In the final sections we explore two other challenges to the truth-link. First (part V), we consider forms of idealized justification theory that would imply the independence of justification from the relevant sort of truth conduciveness; next (part VI) we investigate a view, Pragmatism, which maintains that epistemic justification is sanctioned by ends other than a tendency towards truth. (shrink)

In a recent paper on Truth, Knowability and Neutrality Timothy Kenyon sets out to defend the coherence of a putative anti-realist truth-predicate, superassertibility, due to Wright (1992, 1999), against a number of Wright’s critics. By his own admission, the success of Kenyon’s defensive strategies turns out to hinge upon a realist conception of absolute warrant which conflicts with the anti-realist character of the original proposal, based, as it was, on a notion of defeasible warrant. Kenyon’s potential success in resisting Wright’s (...) critics brings a pyrrhic victory: either way, realism wins. Here I argue that the link between superassertibility and defeasible warrant can be restored in a way which clarifies the consistency of the pair, provided that the notion of inference to superassertibility is properly understood in logical terms. As one might expect, the requisite notion is not classical in character. As one might not expect, the notion cannot be properly construed in intuitionist terms either. Hence, I propose an alternative logical framework which, I believe, is at least formally adequate to the representation of superassertibility on the basis of defeasible warrant. The price to be paid for rejecting the ‘third way’ proposed here in favour of either of the two more traditional logical options is precisely that indicated by Kenyon’s discussion. (shrink)

Compared to the extensive amount of literature on various themes of W.V.O. Quine’s philosophy, his immanent concept of truth remains a relatively unexplored topic. This relative lack of research contributes to a persistent confusion on the deflationary and inflationary details of Quine’s truth. According to a popular reading, Quine’s disquotational definition of the truth predicate exhausts the content of truth, thus amounting to a deflationary view. Others promote opposing interpretations. I argue that by relying on Tarski’s semantic conception of truth, (...) Quine’s disquotational account inherits a commitment to classical correspondence intuitions. Based on this, Quine posits a firm constitution for truth as an intermediary between language and the world. From this constitution claim follows that the disquotational account proves incompatible with both the general deflationary thesis and, more specifically, the minimalist account, which deny any constitution for truth past what is given by the preferred deflationary schema. This reading is significant for refuting the widespread misrepresentations of Quine as a prominent deflationist. (shrink)

According to truth pluralism, sentences from different areas of discourse can be true in different ways. This view has been challenged to make sense of logical validity, understood as necessary truth preservation, when inferences involving different areas are considered. To solve this problem, a natural temptation is that of replicating the standard practice in many-valued logic by appealing to the notion of designated values. Such a simple approach, however, is usually considered a non-starter for strong versions of truth pluralism, since (...) designation seems to embody nothing but a notion of generic truth. In this paper, I explore the analogy with many-valued logic by comparing the problem of mixed inferences with Suszko’s thesis, and argue that the strong pluralist has room to resist the commitment to a generic property of truth by undermining the semantic significance of Suszko’s reduction. (shrink)

Alethic pluralism holds that there are many ways of being true. The view has been accused of being unable to do justice to the traditional account of logical validity, understood as necessary truth preservation. In this paper I reformulate the debate in terms of the naturalness of generic truth, and discuss some notable consequences of this more careful reformulation. I show not only that some alleged solutions, like the resort to plural quantification, are ineffective, but also that the problem is (...) not really posed by mixed inferences, as usually thought. Finally, I argue that the traditional account of logical validity does carry a commitment to generic truth, so that a strong version of alethic pluralism can hardly vindicate it. (shrink)

Substantivism is a general philosophical methodology advocating a substantive approach to philosophical theorizing. In this article, I present an overview of this methodology with a special emphasis on the field of truth. I begin with a framework for understanding what is at stake in the substantivist–deflationist debate and describe the substantivist critique of deflationism. I then proceed to discuss contemporary substantivism as a positive methodology, present examples of recent substantivist theories of truth, delineate several principles of philosophical substantivism, and connect (...) it to contemporary thought about the nature and methods of philosophy. Due to limitations of space, I am unable to discuss all the forms contemporary substantivism has taken. But I try to give a clear sense of the central principles, challenges, and promise of this methodology. (shrink)

The paper offers a new analysis of the difficulties involved in the construction of a general and substantive correspondence theory of truth and delineates a solution to these difficulties in the form of a new methodology. The central argument is inspired by Kant, and the proposed methodology is explained and justified both in general philosophical terms and by reference to a particular variant of Tarski's theory. The paper begins with general considerations on truth and correspondence and concludes with a brief (...) outlook on the "family" of theories of truth generated by the new methodology. (shrink)

Widespread deflationistic readings of Quine misrepresent his view of disquotation’s significance and the truth predicate’s utility. I demonstrate this by answering a question that philosophers have not directly addressed: how does Quine understand the philosophical problem of truth? A primary thesis of this paper is that we can answer this question only by working from within Quine’s naturalistic framework. Drawing on neglected texts from Quine's corpus, I defend the view that, for Quine, the problem of truth emerges from the development (...) of science, in particular, from logical theorizing. I show that disquotation itself, from this Quinean point of view, is the problematic phenomenon calling for philosophical reflection. I conclude by arguing that Quine does not envisage the kind of explanatory role for disquotation taken up by contemporary deflationists, and he shows no interest in the task that animates deflationism, namely, to show that concerns with truth’s nature are fundamentally confused. (shrink)

This paper discusses the relation between Crispin Wright’s alethic pluralism and my global expressivism. I argue that on many topics Wright’s own view counts as expressivism in my sense, but that truth itself is a striking exception. Unlike me, Wright never seems to countenance an expressivist account of truth, though the materials needed are available to him in his approaches to other topics.

International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Volume 20, Issue 1, Page 125-133, February 2012.

While historically prominent theories of truth such as the correspondence theory, coherentism, pragmatism, verificationism, and instrumentalism diverge in many ways, they converge in at least one fundamental respect. They are all monist theories of truth. They incorporate the thesis that there is one property—and one property only—in virtue of which propositions can be true. The truth pluralist, on the other hand, rejects this idea. There are several properties in virtue of which propositions can be true. This article offers a survey (...) of recent work on alethic pluralism—presenting various incarnations of the view, objections leveled against them, and various lines of response available to pluralists. (shrink)

According to moderate truth pluralism, there is a single property that qualifies as truth for any domain whatsoever. However, propositions concerning different domains may possess this single truth property in virtue of different properties. Empirical propositions may be true in virtue of corresponding to reality while legal propositions may be true in virtue of cohering with the body of law. Moderate pluralists claim that truth is a completely general doxastic norm: for any p, the belief that p is correct if (...) and only if p is true—regardless of what domain p pertains to. Moderate pluralists additionally claim that domain-specific properties are local doxastic norms which serve as standards of correctness within their respective domains, and that they do so because they are ways of being true and truth is a general, doxastic norm. This paper offers a grounding-theoretic account of the metaphysics of moderate pluralism and uses it as platform for developing a criticism of the moderate pluralist’s account of doxastic normativity. Two strategies are explored as potential responses to the criticism, but are ultimately dismissed. (shrink)

The mere fact that ontological debates are possible requires us to address the question, what is it to claim that a certain entity or kind of entity exists—in other words, what do we do when we make an existence-claim? I develop and defend one candidate answer to this question, namely that to make an existence-claim with regard to Fs is to claim that we can refer to Fs. I show how this theory can fulfil the most important explanatory desiderata for (...) a theory of existence; I also defend it against the charges of illegitimate ‘semantic ascent’ and of making existence counterfactually dependent on human linguistic ability. (shrink)

Self-knowledge (SK) is a natural ability of the human cognitive system and is defined as a complex re-representation of knowledge subject has about her own internal states. It is composed of two basic representations: the representation of I and the representation of the experienced state. SK has a propositional (i.e. language-like) form and can be expressed in the form of self-reports like “I believe that I believe that p”. It has then the form of a second-order belief which, as a (...) re-representation, generates the following problem concerning false representations: if the first-order representations of the I or of experienced states can be false like in cases of self-illusions or disorders like somatoparaphrenia, then how can error in self-cognition inherited by the re-representation (i.e. by SK) be avoided? I claim that the re-representational model of SK is a useful but artificial tool for the description of the components of SK; however, it is misleading to think of it as capturing the truth about SK. I propose here a representational model of SK which reduces those beliefs constituting SK to first-order beliefs which are sufficient as constituents of SK. (shrink)

Alethic pluralists argue truth is a metaphysically robust higher-order property that is multiply realized by a set of diverse and domain-specific subvening alethic properties. The higher-order truth property legitimizes mixed inferences and accounts for a univocal truth predicate. Absent of this higher-order property, pluralists lack an account of the validity of mixed inferences and an adequate semantics for the truth predicate and thereby appear forced to abandon the central tenets of alethic pluralism. I argue the use of many-valued logics to (...) support pluralism fails to address the pluralist’s metaphysical problem regarding mixed inferences and mixed truth functional connectives. The high degree of heterogeneity of the alethic realizers challenges the plausibility of a single higher-order functional property. A functional property with such a heterogeneous base cannot be projectable at a theoretically significant level. The problem with mixed inferences and truth functions is but one symptom of the deeper projectability problem. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a pluralistic framework for disagreement and I develop a strategy to account for the varieties of disagreement on the basis of the varieties of the truth across different domains of discourse. Truth-pluralism is thus sufficient for delivering pluralism about disagreement—that is, diaphonic pluralism.

The identity conception of truth holds that a thinkable is true just in case it is a fact. As such, it sets itself against correspondence theories of truth, while respecting the substantive role played by truth in respect of enquiry. In this article, I motivate and develop that view, and, in so doing, promote a particular conception of sense. This allows me to defend the view from two substantial criticisms. First, that the identity conception of truth is incoherent in respect (...) of its treatment of objects in the realm of reference, and, second, that it is committed to a view of the world in which ordinary objects have no place. (shrink)

The nature of moral facts, and their relationship to rationality, imagination and sentiment, have been central and pressing issues in recent moral philosophy. In this paper, I discuss and criticise a meta-ethical theory put forward by Alison Denham, which views moral facts as being constituted by the responses of ideal, empathetic agents. I argue that Denham’s account is radically unstable, in that she has given us an account of the nature of such agents which is inconsistent with an independently plausible (...) principle relating to concept acquisition. I go on to discuss one line of defence that Denham might employ, but argue that taking such a line entails abandoning what she takes to be an important advantage of her account over rival ideal-observer theories such as Michael Smith’s. (shrink)

The word ‘true’ shows some evidence of gradability. For instance, there are cases where truth-bearers are described as ‘slightly true’, ‘completely true’ or ‘very true’. Expressions that accept these types of modifiers are analysed in terms of properties that can be possessed to a greater or lesser degree. If ‘true’ is genuinely gradable, then it would follow that there are degrees of truth. It might also follow that ‘true’ is context-sensitive, like other gradable expressions. Such conclusions are difficult to reconcile (...) with most existing theories: deflationists and inflationists alike tend to reject the thesis that one true truth-bearer can have more or less truth than another. Based on work in natural language, I argue that ‘true’ is not a genuinely gradable expression. I also provide an explanation of the apparent evidence for gradability. Hence there is no reason to think that there is a truth property that comes in degrees. (shrink)

William James once said that truth is “the good in the way of belief.” This has the ring of, well, truth. While it may appear as if James’ claim is straightforwardly true, I think that there are at least three different dimensions along which truth can be normatively related to belief. In this paper, I explore these different dimensions of truth’s value, considering both how they differ and how they relate. As we will see, our understanding of these different dimensions (...) of truth’s value can impact our understanding of its nature. I argue that a fuller understanding of the connections between truth’s normative dimensions pushes us in a decidedly pragmatist and pluralist direction—something of which I believe James would approve. (shrink)

Shapiro (Philos Q 61:320–342, 2011) argues that, if we are deflationists about truth, we should be deflationists about logical consequence. Like the truth predicate, he claims, the logical consequence predicate is merely a device of generalisation and more substantial characterisation, e.g. proof- or model-theoretic, is mistaken. I reject his analogy between truth and logical consequence and argue that, by appreciating how the logical consequence predicate is used as well as the goals of proof theory and model theory, we can be (...) deflationists about truth but not logical consequence. (shrink)

Critical notice of Richard Gaskin's "The Unity of the Proposition" (OUP 2008).

In this essay I shall focus on the adoption of the Semantic Approach by structural realists, including myself, who have done so on the grounds that it wears its structuralist sympathies on its sleeve. Despite this, the SA has been identified as standing in tension with the ontological commitments of the so-called ’ontic’ form of this view and so I shall explore that tension before discussing the usefulness of the SA in framing scientific representation and concluding with a discussion of (...) the implications of the ontological status of theories and models themselves. (shrink)

ABSTRACTEcumenical Alethic Pluralism is a novel kind of alethic pluralism. It is ecumenical in that it widens the scope of alethic pluralism by allowing for a normatively deflated truth property alongside a variety of normatively robust truth properties. We establish EAP by showing how Wright’s Inflationary Arguments fail in the domain of taste, once a relativist treatment of the metaphysics and epistemology of that domain is endorsed. EAP is highly significant to current debates on the nature of truth insofar as (...) it involves a reconfiguration of the dialectic between deflationists and pluralists. (shrink)

In Truth and Objectivity, Crispin Wright argues that because truth is a distinctively normative property, it cannot be as metaphysically insubstantive as deflationists claim.1 This argument has been taken, together with the scope problem,2 as one of the main motivations for alethic pluralism.3 We offer a reconstruction of Wright’s Inflationary Argument (henceforth IA) aimed at highlighting what are the steps required to establish its inflationary conclusion. We argue that if a certain metaphysical and epistemological view of a given subject matter (...) is accepted, a local counterexample to IA can be constructed. We focus on the domain of basic taste and we develop two variants of a subjectivist and relativist metaphysics and epistemology that seems palatable in that domain. Although we undertake no commitment to this being the right metaphysical cum epistemological package for basic taste, we contend that if the metaphysics and the epistemology of basic taste are understood along these lines, they call for a truth property whose nature is not distinctively normative—contra what IA predicts. This result shows that the success of IA requires certain substantial metaphysical and epistemological principles and that, consequently, a proper assessment of IA cannot avoid taking a stance on the metaphysics and the epistemology of the domain where it is claimed to be successful. Although we conjecture that IA might succeed in other domains, in this paper we don’t take a stand on this issue. We conclude by briefly discussing the significance of this result for the debate on alethic pluralism. (shrink)

In Truth and Objectivity, Crispin Wright argues that because truth is a distinctively normative property, it cannot be as metaphysically insubstantive as deflationists claim. We offer a reconstruction of Wright’s Inflationary Argument that highlights the steps required to establish its inflationary conclusion. We argue that if a certain metaphysical and epistemological view of a given subject matter is accepted, a local counterexample to the Inflationary Argument can be constructed. As a case study we focus on the domain of basic taste. (...) We develop two variants of a subjectivist and relativist metaphysics and epistemology that seem palatable in that domain and we show that the Inflationary Argument doesn’t go through in the domain of basic taste thus construed. We conclude by briefly discussing the significance of this result for the debate on alethic pluralism. (shrink)

I have two objectives in this paper. The first is to investigate whether, and to what extent, truth is valuable. I do this by first isolating the value question from other normative questions. Second, I import into the debate about the nature of truth some key distinctions hailing from value theory. This will help us to clarify the sense in which truth is valuable. I then argue that there is significant variability in the value of truth in different areas of (...) discourse. I shall call this the axiological variability conjecture. I illustrate and substantiate AVC by contrasting the occurrence of disagreement in two paradigmatically evaluative areas of discourse, viz. matters of taste, on the one hand, and morality, on the other. I claim that there is a reasonable tendency to care much more about settling moral disagreements than taste disagreements and that this difference has to do, at least partly but significantly, with the different value that truth exhibits in these two areas of discourse. I then turn to the second objective of the paper—namely, to discuss how pluralistic accounts of the nature of truth may deal with the value of truth in light of AVC. I will argue that AVC is a problem for all versions of truth pluralism that are committed to the following two theses: that truth is a value concept; and that this characteristic of the concept has to be reflected in the metaphysical nature of any admissible truth properties—i.e., all the various properties that are admissible in the pluralist account are value-conferring properties and thus intrinsically valuable. In so doing, I will focus primarily on Michael Lynch’s functionalist incarnation of truth pluralism. Lynch terms this “Manifestation Alethic Pluralism”. My reason for this is twofold: first and foremost, MAP is a paradigmatic exemplification of a model of truth pluralism that is committed to both and ; second, MAP has, to date, enjoyed the most discussion, and currently provides the most developed account of truth pluralism. However, I argue that MAP lacks the resources to account for AVC. Owing to this, I suggest two ways out for an advocate of MAP, which force various structural changes in her view. (shrink)

What is deflationism about truth? There are many questions that can be raised about this, given the numerous different characterizations of deflationism in the literature. Here I attend to questions about the characterization of deflationism that arise when we carefully distinguish between issues pertaining to concepts and issues pertaining to properties.

In this paper I investigate the claim that truth is a relational property. What does this claim really mean? What is its import?—Is it a basic feature of the concept of truth; or a distinctive feature of the correspondence theory of truth; or even both? After introducing some general ideas about truth, I begin by highlighting an ambiguity in current uses of the term ‘relational property’ in the truth debate, and show that we need to distinguish two separate ideas: that (...) truth is a relational property, and that truth is an extrinsic property. I go on to examine what both of these ideas are in more detail, and consider what would need to hold for truth to be in either of these categories. I then discern where all the main competitors in the truth debate stand on these issues. In doing so we learn more about these views and what they entail, and build a general picture of what stances different theories of truth take on whether truth is extrinsic or relational. Moreover, in doing this we will be able to answer one of the questions with which we began: whether truth’s being extrinsic or relational is something that, if accepted, lends support to the correspondence theory of truth. We will see that this is not so, and discern some interesting variations between various theories of truth on the issues of whether truth is extrinsic or relational. Following this we will be in a better position to judge whether the notions of extrinsicality or relationality are basic features of the concept of truth. In the final part of the paper I argue that, even if we are not in a position to conclude that they are basic features, they are features that any prospective theory of truth needs to take seriously. (shrink)

Alethic pluralism, on one version of the view , is the idea that truth is to be identified with different properties in different domains of discourse. 1 Whilst we operate with a univocal concept of truth, and a uniform truth predicate, the thought is that the truth property changes from one domain to the next. So the truth property for talk about the nature and state of the material world may be different from the truth property for moral discourse .Tappolet (...) challenged alethic pluralism by asking how it can account for the truth of mixed compounds, such as a mixed conjunction like ‘this cat is wet and funny’, where each of the conjuncts are from different domains of discourse, and thus assessable in terms of different truth properties. She argues that the alethic pluralist is left in a dilemma: either admit of a ‘generic’ truth property, which can be possessed by propositions from all domains, thus rendering the plural ways of being true obsolete, or deny the truth of mixed conjunctions.In Edwards 2008, I argued that there is route out of Tappolet's dilemma. Briefly, I suggested that we acknowledge that the truth of a mixed conjunction is dependent on the truth of its conjuncts, and we should explain the truth of the conjunction by saying that it is true just in case each of its conjuncts is true. This, I argued, gives us an account of the truth of the conjunction without needing to appeal to a troublesome ‘generic’ truth property.Aaron Cotnoir criticizes my solution to Tappolet's problem. Cotnoir argues that my solution to the problem admits of an unacceptable ‘proliferation’ of truth properties, and smuggles in a generic truth property. I …. (shrink)

International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Volume 20, Issue 1, Page 115-124, February 2012.

Response‐dispositional (RD) properties are standardly defined as those that involve an object's appearing thus or thus to some perceptually well‐equipped observer under specified epistemic conditions. The paradigm instance is that of colour or other such Lockean “secondary qualities”, as distinct from those—like shape and size—that pertain to the object itself, quite apart from anyone's perception. This idea has lately been thought to offer a promising alternative to the deadlocked dispute between hard‐line ‘metaphysical’ realists and subjectivists, projectivists, social constructivists, or hard‐line (...) anti‐realists. A chief source text is Plato's Euthyphro, where the issue is posed in ethical terms: do the gods infallibly approve virtuous acts on account of their divine moral omniscience or are virtuous acts just those the gods approve? Among the areas proposed as amenable to an RD approach are epistemology, ethics, political theory, and philosophy of mathematics. It is claimed that by making due allowance for the involvement of normalised or optimised human responses one can steer a course between the twin poles of an objectivist realism that places truth beyond our cognitive grasp and an epistemic conception that confines truth within the limits of humanly attainable proof, knowledge, or verification. Here I argue—on the contrary—that RD approaches can be shown to offer nothing more than a variant of the same old realist versus anti‐realist dilemma. That is, they work out either as a trivial (tautologous) claim that ‘truth’ simply equates with ‘best judgement’ in the ideal (quasi‐objective) limit or as the claim—advanced by anti‐realists like Michael Dummett—that we cannot form any adequate conception of objective (recognition‐transcendent) truths. After looking at this issue in various contexts of debate, I conclude that one useful (if pyrrhic) outcome is to demonstrate the non‐availability of any middle‐ground stance. We are left with the strictly unavoidable choice between a realist or objectivist approach and one that assimilates truth to the consensus of accredited best opinion. This latter amounts to a roundabout, elaborately qualified version of the anti‐realist case. (shrink)

ABSTRACTBy means of critical reflection on the current situation of Chinese philosophy, this article aims to clarify two different approaches to philosophy. One is for scholars to focus on original texts and thought tradition, concerned with interpretation and inheritance; even in this way, scholars can achieve theoretical innovation through creative interpretation. The other is for researchers to face up questions from academics and from reality, and mainly to do theoretical creation in philosophy on a profound theoretical background, strictly following academic (...) norms and standards. For contemporary Chinese philosophy, the two approaches are indispensable, but the serious problem is that the first approach absolutely is dominant, but the second is too weak. The correct choice of Chinese philosophy should be to let hundreds of flower bloom, to let different approaches compete with each other, and to cooperatively establish the prosperity of contemporary Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

Pluralism about truth is the view that there are many properties, not just one, in virtue of which things are true. Pluralists hope to dodge the objections that face traditional monistic substantive views of truth, as well as those facing deflationary theories of truth. More specifically, pluralists hope to advance an explanatorily potent understanding of truth that can capture the subtleties of various realist and anti-realist domains of discourse, all while avoiding the scope problem. I offer a new objection to (...) pluralism that challenges its fundamental commitment to there being a set of alethic properties in virtue of which claims are true. In its place I offer an alternative view that merges standard truthmaker theory with a primitivist conception of truth. This combination of views satisfies the theoretical desires that pluralists claim for themselves, but without taking on pluralism's host of challenges and problems. (shrink)

According to alethic pluralism, sentences belonging to different domains of discourse can be true by having different alethic (i.e., truth-constituting) properties. Against this pluralistic view, Jamin Asay has recently argued that pluralists' appeal to multiple alethic properties is ill-motivated because the main advantages of pluralism can already be obtained within the framework of standard truthmaker theory. In response to this objection, this paper argues that Asay's claim does not hold with respect to one of the central advantages of pluralism, namely, (...) the ability to offer a proper understanding of the realism/anti-realism debate. This is because, first, when simply construed, truthmaker theory can only provide an inadequate understanding of the debate, and second, when construed in certain ways that allow it to avoid inadequacy, it becomes committed to multiple alethic properties. (shrink)

Truth is one of the central subjects in philosophy. It is also one of the largest. Truth has been a topic of discussion in its own right for thousands of years. Moreover, a huge variety of issues in philosophy relate to truth, either by relying on theses about truth, or implying theses about truth.