Prosentential Theory of Truth
Edited by Joseph Ulatowski (University of Waikato)
About this topic
Summary | On the prosentential theory of truth, a prosentence, e.g., ‘that’s true’, is substituted for the truth predicate, ‘… is true’, a pro-form forming operator, such that the putative inter-linguistic word-world relation may be replaced with a purely expressive intra-linguistic word-word relation. Since the semantic content of anaphoric antecedents and prosentences presume a relation between a proposition and the world, these truth conditions turn out to be genuine language-independent properties. Proforms are a category of grammatical devices of which pronouns and proverbs are most familiar. Pronouns function grammatically as nouns and may be substituted for previously mentioned nouns. Proverbs function grammatically as verbs and stand in form previously mentioned actions. Since so many grammatical forms have proforms, it should not be surprising for langauge to have a proform for sentences: prosentences. Prosentences have the grammatical structure of a sentence, and stand in for previous sentences. Jill said, "The taxes the state charged me is too high." "That's true," said the tax assessor, "but you ought to pay it now and dispute it by legal means later." Just as with pronouns and proverbs, the prosentence, "That's true," points back to the previous sentence. This special prosentence inherits content in a similar way that a pronoun such as "he" or "she" relates to and inherits its content from its antecedent. "That's true" is an anaphor for some antecedent. That is all, on the prosentential account, that one needs to know to understand truth. |
Key works | The two primary works of the prosentential theory of truth are Grover et al 1975 and Grover 1992. Both Brandom 1994 and Brandom 2000 expand upon Grover (et al's) work. |
Introductions | James Beebe's "Prosentential Theory of Truth" is a good introductory summary of the view. Michael Lynch's The Nature of Truth contains a commissioned essay by Dorothy Grover and a fine overview of prosententialism about truth. |
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Related categories
Siblings:
- Coherence Theory of Truth (152)
- Correspondence Theory of Truth (323)
- Deflationism about Truth (879 | 213)
- Pragmatism about Truth (194)
- Tarskian Theories of Truth (170)
- Identity Theory of Truth (40)
- Revision Theory of Truth (125)
- Primitivism about Truth (71)
- Pluralism about Truth (213)
- Contextualism about Truth (36)
- Theories of Truth, Misc (433)
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