Abstract

Too often Aristotle’s account of truth is summed up by repeating some variant of “to say of what is that it is and of what it is not that it is not, is to say the true; while to say of what is that it is not or of what is not that it is, is to say the false,” and matters are left at that. Or worse still, it is simply described as a “correspondence theory.” The importance of Paolo Crivelli’s book is that it perspicuously fills in the blanks so that in its realm Aristotle’s account can be seen as comparable to current truth-conditional compositional accounts like Tarski’s and those deployed by figures such as Davidson. Crivelli’s goals are to provide “a precise reconstruction of all of Aristotle’s most significant views on truth and falsehood and to gain a philosophical understanding of them”. He goes far toward attaining these ends. His approach consists of relating Aristotle’s views to those at the forefront of contemporary discussions of similar topics and therewith adapting some of the most central themes of current philosophical logic and logical theory to explicate Aristotle on truth. One of these themes is the presentation of truth conditions for the various sorts of sentences dealt with by Aristotle and which still play a role on the present scene. In doing this he performs a valuable service to the scholarly community, allowing Aristotle scholars and others to apply seminal ideas from the Philosopher to topics in the history of philosophy, for example, the Terminist tradition, and to contemporary discussions. The book opens with an overview of Aristotle’s theory of truth and is followed by material organized into three parts: Bearers of Truth and Falsehood, Empty Terms, Truth and Time. These are followed by appendices which include translations of sections of the Metaphysics and discussions of many placed and of future-tense predication.