Prosentential theory of Truth
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2004)
| Abstract | Prosentential theorists claim that sentences such as “That’s true” are prosentences that function analogously to their better known cousins–pronouns. For example, just as we might use the pronoun ‘he’ in place of ‘James’ to transform “James went to the supermarket” into “He went to the supermarket,” so we might use the prosentenceforming operator ‘is true’ to transform “Snow is white” into “‘Snow is white’ is true.” According to the prosentential theory of truth, whenever a referring expression (for example, a definite description or a quote-name) is joined to the truth predicate, the resulting statement contains no more content than the sentence(s) picked out by the referring expression. To assert that a sentence is true is simply to assert or reassert that sentence; it is not to ascribe the property of truth to that sentence. The prosentential theory is one kind of deflationary theory of truth. Like all deflationary theories, it provides an alternative to explanations of truth that analyze truth in terms of reference, predicate satisfaction or a correspondence relation | |||||||||
| Keywords | truth prosentence prosentential | |||||||||
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Similar books and articlesBradley Dowden, Truth. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Charles Sayward (1987). Prior’s Theory of Truth. Analysis 47 (2):83-87.
Michael J. Zimmerman (1978). Propositional Quantification and the Prosentential Theory of Truth. Philosophical Studies 34 (3):253 - 268.
Marian David (1994). Correspondence and Disquotation: An Essay on the Nature of Truth. Oxford University Press.
D. Patterson (2003). What is a Correspondence Theory of Truth? Synthese 137 (3):421 - 444.
Pierre Le Morvan (2004). Ramsey on Truth and Truth on Ramsey. British Journal for the History of Philosophy 12 (4):705 – 718.
Arvid Båve (2009). Why Is a Truth-Predicate Like a Pronoun? Philosophical Studies 145 (2):297 - 310.
Daniel Stoljar, The Deflationary Theory of Truth. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
James R. Beebe (2003). Attributive Uses of Prosentences. Ratio 16 (1):1–15.
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