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Truth as a relational property

  • S.I.: Truth: Concept Meets Property
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Abstract

In this paper I investigate the claim that truth is a relational property. What does this claim really mean? What is its import?—Is it a basic feature of the concept of truth; or a distinctive feature of the correspondence theory of truth; or even both? After introducing some general ideas about truth, I begin by highlighting an ambiguity in current uses of the term ‘relational property’ in the truth debate, and show that we need to distinguish two separate ideas: that truth is a relational property, and that truth is an extrinsic property. I go on to examine what both of these ideas are in more detail, and consider what would need to hold for truth to be in either of these categories. I then discern where all the main competitors in the truth debate stand on these issues. In doing so we learn more about these views and what they entail, and build a general picture of what stances different theories of truth take on whether truth is extrinsic or relational. Moreover, in doing this we will be able to answer one of the questions with which we began: whether truth’s being extrinsic or relational is something that, if accepted, lends support to the correspondence theory of truth. We will see that this is not so, and discern some interesting variations between various theories of truth on the issues of whether truth is extrinsic or relational. Following this we will be in a better position to judge whether the notions of extrinsicality or relationality are basic features of the concept of truth. In the final part of the paper I argue that, even if we are not in a position to conclude that they are basic features, they are features that any prospective theory of truth needs to take seriously.

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Notes

  1. Indeed, Francescotti (1999, 2014) attempts to analyse the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction as the non-relational/relational distinction. However, as the discussion here suggests, there are obstacles to thinking that the distinctions are co-extensive.

  2. It would not be possible for me to discuss in the space available here all the proposed accounts of the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties in the compendious literature on the subject. Accordingly, I have selected a couple of the most prominent examples from the two main schools of thought. I will not list all the available alternatives here, but for more on the subject, and an extensive guide to the various options available, see Weatherson and Marshall (2012).

  3. There are some complications here due to different accounts of the nature of propositions: these will be explored in more detail in relation to the identity theory of truth below.

  4. I just use dyadic relations as an example here, but the analysis can be extended to include relations between different numbers of entities.

  5. This is based on Wright’s notion of superassertibility (Wright 1992, p. 48). It is by no means common to all pragmatists as they conceive themselves (e.g. Peirce and Putnam would not explicitly endorse it), but Wright argues that this is the account pragmatists ultimately ought to end up with. I do not delve into these issues more here, but see Wright (1992, Chap. 2) for discussion.

  6. Note that there are many different forms of identity theories of truth. The view discussed here is more in line with the view attributed to Moore (1899) and Russell (1904) by Candlish (1989). Other forms are closer to deflationary theories of truth (e.g. Hornsby 1997; Dodd 2008).

  7. There are a number of different forms of primitivism about truth (e.g. Davidson 1996; Sosa 2001; Asay 2013), and they do not all share the same features as the view discussed here.

  8. This distinguishes the deflationary views under consideration here (paradigmatically, those of Horwich 1998 and Field 1994) from views which deny that ‘is true’ expresses a property at all (such as those of Grover 1992; Brandom 1994; Strawson 1950, and Williams 1976). Truth is not a relational or an extrinsic property on these views, because truth is not a property at all! I do not think that such views cause too many problems for our investigation here, for the concept of truth under consideration here is the concept of a descriptive predicate that picks out a property. On these views, truth is not at all about the interaction between propositions and the world, or between truths and the things that make them true: the word ‘true’ merely serves some particular, non-predicative, expressive functions. Such views reject the idea that there is a concept of truth qua property at all, or, at least, holds that this concept is defective and ought to be abandoned. However, if one wanted to hold to the contrary that these views were held to the same standards as other theories of truth, one could try to adopt the general deflationary explanation for the extrinsicality of truth given below, and try to avoid any explicit reference to truth as a property. My thanks to an anonymous referee and the editors for discussion here.

  9. Horwich, of course, denies though that this ends up being part of the concept of truth, as he holds that one possesses the concept of truth just when one has the disposition to accept all non-paradoxical instances of the equivalence schema. However, he does appreciate the general belief that such principles are part of the concept of truth, and need to be explained away as such accordingly.

  10. Note that there are independent reasons to doubt that such explanations are good for both, but that is a separate issue.

  11. I would like to thank audiences at the University of Connecticut, the University of Bologna, and a Cogito/Veritas Pluralism Workshop on Truth in Bologna for very helpful discussion and feedback on some of the material presented here. I would also like to thank two anonymous referees for Synthese and the editors of this special edition for extensive and useful comments on the paper.

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  1. Philosophy Department, Hamilton College, 198 College Hill Road, Clinton, NY, 13323, USA

    Douglas Edwards

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Edwards, D. Truth as a relational property. Synthese 198 (Suppl 2), 735–757 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1277-8

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