Abstract

The question is not whether [“true” and “false”] are in practice applied to ethical statements, but whether, if they are so applied, the point of doing so would be the same as the point of applying them to statements of other kinds, and if not, in what ways it would be different. (Michael Dummett, quoted in Lynch 2001: 273) When I claim that “my bike is dirty” or that “the dinner is burning” what makes it the case that what I say is true or false? One intuitive answer would be that the statements are true if, as a matter of fact, my bike is dirty or the dinner is burning. Considering our day-to-day talk reveals that we believe there are facts which make our common-or-garden-variety statements true. We don’t of course believe that we know all such facts but nevertheless we still believe that if what we say is true then some fact makes it so.