Abstract
Truth is a fundamental philosophical concept that, despite its common and everyday use, has resisted common-sense formulations. At this point, one may legitimately wonder if there even is a common-sense notion of truth or what it could look like. In response, I propose here a common-sense account of truth based on four “truisms” (to use J.L. Austin’s term) that set a baseline for how to go about building an account of truth. Drawing on both ordinary language philosophy and contemporary pragmatic approaches to truth, I defend a pragmatic, common-sense theory of truth. The result is a theory that focuses the use and function of truth while also emphasizing its “subject-independence.”
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
By “common sense” I don’t mean to refer to a specific philosophical position, such as Scottish common sense realism, Peirce’s critical common-sensism, or Moore’s position in “A Defence of Common Sense” (thanks to a reviewer for raising this question). I take common sense in a non-theoretical (common sense?) way: “common” in the sense of widely shared, or, as argued below, a generally accepted baseline. But also “common” in the sense of “ordinary,” hence the connection with ordinary language philosophy. (In this sense one could argue that ordinary language philosophy is a post-linguistic turn version of common sense philosophy.)
Austin also seems to have recognized this, dismissing the liar paradox in a footnote to his essay “Truth”: “It takes two to make a truth. Hence (obviously) there can be no criterion of truth in the sense of some feature detectable in the statement itself which will reveal whether it is true or false. Hence, too, a statement cannot without absurdity refer to itself” (Austin 1950: 118). Austin’s parenthetical “obviously” is revealing, suggesting that liar sentences are a clear example of what he calls a “misfire.”
While Lynch here speaks of “causal” correspondence—he focuses on this as a possible explanation for how facts make corresponding beliefs true—the more general point stands: if the truth of, e.g., moral claims depends (perhaps but not necessarily causally) on the prior existence of moral facts, and if we’re baffled by how moral facts exist, then correspondence theories make it difficult to see how these claims can be true.
Maddy (2017) makes a similar point, arguing that we should approach philosophical problems much as we do problems in other fields: namely against a backdrop of ordinary, common-sense results that, in the absence of any specific problem, provide the basis for ongoing inquiry. We should, in other words, resist the invitation to defend our views “from scratch” (2017: 158) since doing so is both under-motivated and puts us at a serious and perhaps insurmountable disadvantage from the outset.
As one reviewer pointed out, this means that pragmatists and others have often denied offering anything so grandiose as a “theory” when doing so entails offering a “definition” of truth. Part of the reason is tactical: the track record for defining truth is not encouraging and James’ pragmatic theory of truth, in particular, has received its share of well-deserved criticism from Russell (Russell 1909) onward. As a result, pragmatic theories of truth have sometimes offered “criteria” of truth instead of a “definition” though this, too, has been problematic: having a definition of truth—being able to say what it is—would seem to be a precondition for specifying the criteria that true beliefs must satisfy. In response, pragmatists have sometimes blurred the distinction between definition and criteria, using a pragmatic theory of meaning to argue that having adequate criteria for truth—being able to say what distinguishes true beliefs—demonstrates the same cognitive grasp that definitions aim for, but without the pretension. (We can begin to see why for similar reasons Neurath proposed putting “truth” on a list of “dangerous” terms whose definitions require constant maintenance, ad hoc adjustment, and what he called “terminological rope-dancing” [Neurath 1940: 133]; for more on Neurath’s tortured relationship to the concept of truth see [Mancosu 2008]).
It’s an open question whether Austin’s version of the correspondence theory avoids the problems mentioned earlier. He’s aware that statements about the future pose problems but it’s still not clear that he’s successfully met the Goldilocks Principle. In fact, some (e.g., Longworth 2017) have argued that he actually puts forward a proto-deflationary theory, which would suggest that his account actually does too little, not too much.
“Does not depend on us” in any significant sense to rule out some trivial cases. “It’s true that my cat is on the mat” depends on me (it’s my cat) but not in any significant sense: my cat’s location is independent of what I happen to think it is. Likewise, “It’s true that I will pick you up at the airport” depends on me, my memory, and my ability to keep promises but, again, doesn’t depend in any significant sense on what I think. Either I show up at the airport or not, and thinking doesn’t make it so.
A natural question at this point is whether these truisms can conflict with each other. There may, for example, be a tension between the Goldilocks principle and the fourth truism, depending on how truth’s subject independence is described, and what counts as saying too much or too little. If subject independence is taken to require indefeasibility (as some Peirceans might insist) or correspondence with reality (as some correspondence theorists might insist) then, yes, there will be tension with the Goldilocks principle. (I address problems with correspondence above and problems with Peircean approaches below, in Section 4.1.) So, unless there are clear benefits to offset the significant costs, the temptation to expand subject independence in these ways should be resisted. The overall strategy, again, is to identify a core set of truistic commitments that can be widely accepted. Subject independence seems to be one of these commitments—who could disagree?—and, while some might wish to bolt on aftermarket parts, install a louder stereo, and add some pinstriping, doing so can have unintended and counterproductive consequences, besides annoying the neighbors and voiding the manufacturer’s warranty. Proceeding with caution should keep tensions between the truisms to a minimum. (Thanks to a reviewer for pointing this out.)
Put in other words, the most pressing issue facing truth-maker theory is not whether truth-makers exist but rather what sorts of truth-makers exist for different sorts of claims: e.g., negative, general, or modal propositions (Armstrong 2004). It does not help much to say that true propositions are made true by the “world” or the “facts”: as Armstrong notes, “different truths.…all have the same maximal truthmaker, the world” (2004: 24), because this sheds scant light on how these sorts of claims are made true. Because correspondence theories of truth are not designed to address this issue, one could agree with Armstrong’s “maximalist” proposal—that every truth has a truth-maker—but still question whether this gives correspondence theories of truth an opening.
Does subject-independence also lead directly to skepticism (as some idealists, e.g., might have claimed)? It’s not clear that it does, or at least not without the help of some significant assumptions. Misak’s approach leads to skepticism because, while truth is supposedly temporally independent, truth-seekers are temporally dependent and, as a result, we are never in a position to know when or if we’ve reached the hypothetical end of inquiry (again, “we cannot know when we are in such a position”). Such, it seems, is the nature of time. Subject-independence does not have this implication because, while we are never able to step out of time, we are able to step out of our shoes: we consider testimonial evidence, we run statistical tests to determine significance and rule out bias, we attempt to replicate results, etc. In short, subject-independence does not lead intrinsically to skepticism in the same way that temporal-independence seems to (at least not without making assumptions about what it is to be a subject). Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for raising this point.
Granted, there may be different standards of “explanatory adequacy,” what calls for explanation, and what counts as adequate. Again, the strategy defended here is to start small and focus on core areas of common agreement: no one denies that truth allows for disquotation and generalization or that it adds grit necessary for actual assertoric discourse. Even Rorty largely agreed with these points, though he didn’t make a big deal of it for fear that doing so invited bad metaphysical behavior (Rorty and Price 2010). Instead, disagreement will be over possible additions to these four core truisms—and over whether such additions are needed.
I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their many helpful comments and suggestions.
References
Armstrong, D. (2004). Truth and Truthmakers. New York: Cambridge University Pess.
Austin, J. L. (1950). Truth. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, 24, 111–128.
Austin, J. L. (1956). A plea for excuses. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 57, 1–30.
Baz, A. (2012). When words are called for. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bell, J., Glanzberg, M., & Ripley, D. (2018). Formal theories of truth. New York: Oxford University Press.
Blanshard, B. (1939). The nature of thought. London: George Allen and Unwin.
Brandom, R. (2002). Expressive vs. explanatory deflationism about truth. In R. Schantz (Ed.), What is truth? (pp. 103–119). Berlin and New York: de Gruyter.
Burgess, A., & Burgess, J. (2011). Truth. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Capps, J. (2014). Radical pragmatism: An operator’s guide. European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, 6, 125–144.
Capps, J. (2018). Did Dewey have a theory of truth? Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 54, 39-63.
Capps, J. (2019). The pragmatic theory of truth. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (summer 2019 edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/truth-pragmatic/>.
Cormier, H. (2001). The truth is what works. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Davidson, D. (1996). The folly of trying to define truth. Journal of Philosophy, 93, 263–278.
Dewey, J. (1941). Propositions, warranted assertibility, and truth. Journal of Philosophy, 38, 169–186.
Fine, A. (1986). The shaky game: Einstein, realism, and the quantum theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Grover, D., Camp, J., & Belnap, N. (1975). A prosentential theory of truth. Philosophical Studies, 27(2), 73–125.
Halbach, V. (2011). Axiomatic theories of truth. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hempel, C. (1935). On the logical positivists’ theory of truth. Analysis, 2, 49–59.
Hookway, C. (2002). Truth, rationality and pragmatism: Themes from Peirce. New York: Oxford University Press.
Horwich, P. (2010). Truth-meaning-reality. New York: Oxford University Press.
Horwich, P. (2011). Williamson’s Philosophy of Philosophy. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 82(2), 524–533.
James, W. (1975). Pragmatism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Kirkham, R. (1992). Theories of truth: A critical introduction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Künne, W. (2003). Conceptions of truth. New York: Oxford University Press.
Longworth G., (2017). John Langshaw Austin, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2017 Edition), Zalta E., (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/ austin-jl/.
Lynch, M. (2004). Truth and multiple realizability. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 82, 384–408.
Lynch, M. (2009). Truth as one and many. New York: Oxford University Press.
Maddy, P. (2017). What do philosophers do? New York: Oxford University Press.
Mancosu, P. (2008). Tarski, Neurath, and Kokoszyńska on the semantic conception of truth. In D. Patterson (Ed.), New essays on Tarski and philosophy (pp. 192–224). New York: Oxford University Press.
McIntyre, L. (2018). Post-truth. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Misak, C. (2000). Truth, politics, morality. London: Routledge.
Misak, C. (2007). Pragmatism and Deflationism. In C. Misak (Ed.), New pragmatists (pp. 68–90). New York: Oxford University Press.
Misak, C. (2008). A culture of justification: The pragmatist’s epistemic argument for democracy. Episteme, 5, 94–105.
Misak, C. (2015). Pragmatism and the function of truth. In S. Gross, N. Tebben, & M. Williams (Eds.), Meaning without representation (pp. 262–278). New York: Oxford University Press.
Næss, A. (1938). Common sense and truth. Theoria, 4(1), 39–58.
Neurath, O. (1940). Universal jargon and terminology. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 41, 127–148.
Niiniluoto, I. (1999). Critical scientific realism. New York: Oxford University Press.
O’Connor, C., & Weatherall, J. O. (2019). The misinformation age. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Peirce, C. S. (1992). Reasoning and the logic of things. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Price, H. (2003). Truth as convenient friction. Journal of Philosophy, 100, 167–190.
Price, H. (2011). Naturalism without mirrors. New York: Oxford University Press.
Price, H. (2013). Expressivisim, pragmatism and Representationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rorty, R., & Price, H. (2010). Exchange on ‘truth as convenient friction. In M. de Caro & D. Macarthur (Eds.), Naturalism and normativity (pp. 253–262). New York: Columbia University Press.
Russell, B. (1909/1994). Pragmatism. In Philosophical essays (pp. 79–111). New York: Routledge.
Talisse, R., & Aikin, S. (Eds.). (2011). The pragmatism reader: From Peirce through the present. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Vision, G. (2004). Veritas: The correspondence theory and its critics. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press.
Wiggins, D. (2002). An indefinabilist cum normative view and the marks of truth. In R. Shantz (Ed.), What is truth? (pp. 316–332). Berlin: De Gruyter.
Wright, C. (1992). Truth and objectivity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Wright, C. (2001). Minimalism, deflationism, pragmatism, pluralism. In M. Lynch (Ed.), The nature of truth: Classical and contemporary readings (pp. 751–787). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Wyatt, J., & Lynch, M. (2016). From one to many: Recent work on truth. American Philosophical Quarterly, 53, 323–340.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Capps, J. A Common-Sense Pragmatic Theory of Truth. Philosophia 48, 463–481 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-019-00099-z
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-019-00099-z