Abstract
Theories of truth can hardly avoid taking into account how truth is expressed in natural language. Existing theories of truth have generally focused on true occurring with that-clauses. This paper takes a closer look at predicates of truth (and related notions) when they apply to objects as the referents of referential noun phrases. It argues that truth predicates and their variants, predicates of correctness, satisfaction and validity, do not apply to propositions (not even with that-clauses), but to a range of attitudinal and modal objects, objects we refer to as ‘claims’, ‘beliefs’, ‘judgments’, ‘demands’, ‘promises, ‘obligations’ etc. As such natural language reflects a notion of truth that is primarily a normative notion, which, however, is not action-guiding, but rather constitutive of representational objects, independently of any actions that may go along with them. The paper furthermore argues that the predicate true is part of a larger class of satisfaction predicates whose semantic differences are best accounted for in terms of a truthmaker theory along the lines of Fine’s (A companion to the philosophy of language, Wiley, Chichester, 2017b) truthmaker semantics. Truthmaker theory also provides a notion of partial content for attitudinal and modal objects, which may exhibit partial correctness, partial satisfaction, and partial validity.
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Notes
Other ‘reifying terms’ of this sort include the truth value true and the direction north, again terms no philosopher would point to when arguing for truth values or directions being objects. Frege, of course, argued for truth values being objects, but he did so on the basis of considerations of the meaning of sentences, not on the basis of the availability of the term the truth value true in natural language. Frege’s motivations for truth values being objects in fact did not come from what appears to be reflected in natural language, unlike his motivations for numbers and propositions.
These are not ordinary cases of co-predication dealt with in the pertinent literature (Pustejovsky 1995, Asher 2010). This literature focuses on conjunction of predicates of different sorts, allowing conjuncts to apply to different developments of an underspecified entity referred to by the subject term. Compositionally such an account would not be available in (3a, b), which requires a modifier to apply to the semantic value of the noun and then the predicate to apply to the modifier-noun combination.
Not all attitudinal objects come with truth or satisfaction conditions. There are also ‘expressive’ attitudinal objects, for example products of expressive illocutionary acts such as sighs and complaints.
All part-related expressions, not just part of behave that way (most of, to some extent, partially etc.).
Part of also applies to what is described as a ‘content’, picking out a partial content:
- (i):
-
a. Part of the content of the sentence John came and Mary left is that John came.
b. Part of the content of the claim/the thought that John came and Mary left is that John came.
Note that the adverbial partly can apply to propositions clearly relating to a partial content, as seen in (ia), as opposed to (ib) (which does not have a clear meaning):
- (i):
-
a.The proposition that John is incompetent is partly true.
b. Part of the proposition that John is incompetent is true.
However, partly does not directly relate to the part structure of the subject referent, but may relate to an entity closely related to it, such as the content of a sentence, as in (iia), which is not equivalent to (iib):
- (ii):
-
a. The sentence John is incompetent is partly true.
b. Part of the sentence John is incompetent is true.
See Yablo (2015) for the observation and Moltmann (2017a) for an analysis.
The sortal state generally is used for states in that sense rather than for attitudinal objects of the sort of beliefs, desires, or intentions.
Thomson (2008) argues that correct applies to assertions in two different ways, depending on the meaning of assertion. When assertion stands for a proposition, correct conveys external correctness, such as truth; when assertion stands for an act of asserting, it conveys internal correctness, correct pronounciation, or use of a grammatical sentence for example. I do not think this is reflected in the linguistic intuitions. Thomson relies on the standard view according to which assertion is polysemous. But that view, as we have seen, is problematic.
One may argue that proofs are correct by nature. Assertions and questions about the existence of a proof of a hypothesis seem to presuppose that. However, proof is in fact also used as a noun for something that may or may not be correct (the proof he wrote down turned out to be incorrect, it contained a mistake). Of course, the verb prove is factive: John proved that S implies the truth of S -- as well as the existence of a (correct) proof. But the verb is not the noun and the noun appears to be polysemous, able to also stand for ‘real’ as well as ‘potential’ or attempted proofs. See also Löf (1987).
It was pointed out to me that judging is not really a voluntary action, which means that a judging cannot be correct in the way a claiming can. However, one can refrain from making a judgment, and thus the making of a judgment can be correct.
Thomson (2008) argues against truth being normative and correct conveying normativity. Rather, for her, correct applies relative to a kind that fixes the standard that an object of that kind has to meet in order to count as correct. This is entirely in the spirit of the present account on which truth is the standard associated with a certain kind of attitudinal object, which an attitudinal object of that kind needs to meet if it is to count as correct. Unlike the present view, Thomason does not take contextually given standards into consideration. Rather she takes the norms or standards associated with acts (of asserting) to be standards of ‘internal correctness’.
For Thomson, assertions are associated with external and with internal standards of correctness, and truth is just one (external) standard that assertions are associated with. That is because on her view assertion is ambiguous between denoting a proposition (associated with an external standard of correctness) and denoting an action (associated with an internal standard of correctness), a view that I take to be in error (Sect. 1). See also Fn 9.
Sometimes a language displays only the normative predicate and no specific truth predicate. Thus, German has only falsch, the antonym of richtig ‘correct’, conveying mere falsehood with claims and beliefs, but, for example, failure to follow the choreography with dance movements (Moltmann 2015a).
Interestingly, falsch when predicated of sentences as in (ia) is not ambiguous, but means only ‘false’, not ‘grammatically wrong’. To convey ungrammatically requires explicitly negating korrekt or richtig:
- (i):
-
a. Der Satz ist falsch.
‘The sentence is false.’
b. Der Satz ist nicht richtig/nicht korrekt/inkorrekt.
‘The sentence is not right/not correct/incorrect.’
There are other cases where true is appropriate, but not correct:
- (i):
-
a. The story the children were told is true.
b. ?? The story the children were told is correct.
These seem to be cases where truth is secondary for the purpose or telos of the representational object, that is, where truth does not act as a norm associated with the representational object.
Propositions as truth bearers are sometimes considered on a par with entities like theories and dogmas. However, unlike propositions, theories and dogmas are artifacts that have been established at a particular time or time period. Whereas theories are generally dependent on a particular agent, dogmas involve a generic dependency (see Thomasson 1999 for the notion of artifacts dependent on generic agency). Unlike particular attitudinal objects, theories and dogmas have the status of enduring and shared contents, because of the range of causal chains and physical realizations they involve. Theories and dogmas can be ‘true’ as well as ‘correct’, like truth-directed attitudinal objects and unlike propositions.
Note that the belief or claim may just be a kind and thus lack actual instances.
Predictions, though, can ‘become’ true:
- (i):
-
The prediction that it would rain yesterday had become true.
Even when speaking about a prediction in the past, had become true or turned out to be true are appropriate, not, was true. Future-oriented attitudinal objects thus change over time as regards their ability to bear truth, though not as regards their ability to bear correctness. A prediction is correct just in case it is true at some point in the future. This suggests that the norm associated with correctness applied to an attitudinal object at a time t is truth at some time, rather than truth at t.
Interestingly, as a referee has pointed out, true may sound better with prediction when acting as a noun modifier, as in a true prediction. The reason for that may be that the adjective here is part of a reduced relative clause, derived from something like prediction that has become true.
This also seems to hold for some speculative attitudinal objects. Thus German Hypothese ‘hypothesis’ does not really accept ist wahr ‘is true’ as predicate, but for some speakers is acceptable with wahr as a modifier:
- (ii):
-
a. ??? Die Hypothese ist wahr.
-
‘The hypothesis is true.’
-
b. eine wahre Hypothese
-
‘a true hypothesis’
-
Hypothese also accepts hat sich als wahr herausegestellt ‘turned out to be true’:
- (iii):
-
Die Hypothese hat sich als wahr herausgestellt.
This indicates that wahr in (iib) involves a reduced relative clause with hat sich als wahr herausgestellt as predicate.
Fine (2017a) uses the term ‘naïve metaphysics’ and ‘metaphysics of appearances’ for descriptive metaphysics, properly understood.
In intuitionism, truth is in fact replaced by (or explained in terms of) satisfaction. Thus, rather than taking propositions to consist in truth conditions, they are taken to consist in an expectation or intention that is to be fulfilled by a proof (or evidence) (Heyting) or else in a problem or task to be resolved by a proof (or evidence) (Kolmogorov) (Löf 1987, p. 410).
A promise, of course, can be said to be a true promise or a false promise, but only in the sense of being made sincerely, not in the sense of being fulfilled.
‘In recognition of’ is meant to capture Searle’s (1983) point that only actions by way of satisfying a request or intention can satisfy the request or intention.
Jarvis (2012) mistakenly takes correctness to also apply to conative mental states such as intentions, pointing to the possibility of an intention being ‘correctly realized’. But in correctly realized, correctly applies to the action that aims to realize the intention, not the intention, the mental state, itself.
The fact that correct evaluates actions that aim to satisfy a request or obligation, but cannot convey the fulfillment of the request or obligation is not only a conceptual truth about the direction of fit associated with satisfaction, but also a linguistic universal. The very same holds for normative predicates such as right, wrong, and German stimmen.
There are other modal objects which I will set aside, such as epistemic modal objects (certainties, possibilities), abilities, and essences. See Moltmann (2017c) for discussion.
Some nouns are polysemous, standing for an illocutionary product or a modal object, for example permission, offer, and invitation.
This holds at least if they are they are future-oriented, rather than directed to the past as below:
- (i):
-
??? John’s hope that his wife was not his cousin has fulfilled itself.
Interestingly, a future-oriented hope can ‘become true’, though a present-oriented hope can neither ‘be true’ nor ‘become true’:
- (ii):
-
a. John’s hope that he would win became true.
b. John’s hope that the key had remained in the lock was fulfilled/??? was true/??? became true.
By contrast, predictions, which can only be future-oriented, can always be fulfilled or become true (though, again, they could not ‘be true’). See Fn 13. This means that become true does not relate to epistemic uncertainty regarding the present or past, but metaphysical indeterminacy of the future.
There is a common characteristic of attitudinal objects with a world-word/mind direction of fit and future-oriented attitudinal objects, given an open, branching future. That is that at the time at which those attitudinal and modals objects exist, there will be different actions or states of affairs in different future stages of the (actual) world that would satisfy the attitudinal object. This is not the case for past or present-directed attitudinal objects (beliefs, claims, hopes) not even for those that could have several truthmaking states of affairs. Given truthmaker semantics, disjunctive or existentially quantified beliefs may have several states of affairs that make them (actually) true. Thus, John’s disjunctive belief that Joe invited Mary or Bill would be made true both by an actual situation of Joe’s inviting Mary and an actual situation of Joe’s inviting Bill. These two situations would also both make true Bill’s existentially quantified belief that Joe invited someone. The two situations, however, would be part of the same current or past stage of the world.
Of course one can promise something to oneself. In that case, the agent acts in two roles, as receiver of the declared norm and the agent to fulfill it.
Validity in a way is also the mode of being of ‘real’ proofs: a proof is ‘real’ just in case it is valid. As such, validity coincides with correctness: a proof is valid just in case it is correct. See also Löf (1987) and Fn 10.
It may be tempting to view the existence statements in (33a, b) as ‘something-from-nothing inferences’ from modal sentences, introducing a pleonastic entity (Schiffer 2003). However, this would not account for validity as the mode of being of the modal object, and it would fail to capture the modal object’s satisfaction conditions, as well as the correctness of actions satisfying it.
Validity may also apply to products of declarative illocutionary acts:
- (i):
-
The declaration of war is still valid.
It may also apply to the abstract state that goes along with the declaration:
- (ii):
-
The state of war still obtains.
The abstract state is the obtaining of the declared condition at a particular time and space. See Moltmann (2013b) for more on the notion of an abstract state.
Unlike the products of declarative illocutionary acts, abstract states can only ‘obtain’, but not be ‘valid’. Existence for abstract states amounts to the obtaining of a condition at a particular location (when established by acts of declaration).
There are non-deontic modal objects that in a way display a part structure based on partial content. These are entities of the sort of abilities, habits, implicit rules, and dispositions (Moltmann 2017a). With them, part of picks out part of the constitutive conditions making up the modal objects (as in part of John’s special ability, part of John’s habit). Of course, modal objects of the sort of abilities and habits cannot be true or false or even satisfied or not satisfied, but they can be manifested and partly manifested. An activity that is a partial manifestation of an ability is a manifestation of part of the ability.
One motivation for Fine’s (2017b, to appear a, b) notion of partial content is to account for the invalidity of the inferences below (Ross’ paradox):
- (i):
-
Take an apple!
Take an apple or the gold!
Fine takes the consequence relation among imperatives as in (i) to be the relation of partial content, defined as follows. Imperative B is a consequence of imperative A iff every satisfier of A contains a satisfier of B and every satisfier of B is contained in a satisfier of A. Fine (to appear a, b) explains the invalidity of the corresponding inference with deontic may in a somewhat similar way:
- (ii):
-
You may take an apple.
You may take an apple or the gold.
There is a puzzle for this syntactic account of subject clauses, though, that still needs an explanation. This is a difference between full DPs with a that-clause modifier and DPs with a silent head noun. That-clauses in subject position are not referentially independent, unlike what the account would predict. That is, what kind of entity a that-clause in subject position stands for depends strictly on the predicate. This is illustrated in the understanding of the evaluative predicate nice below:
- (i):
-
a. That Mary got elected is nice.
b. The fact that Mary got elected is nice
Sentence (ia) allows only for a reading on which nice evaluates a fact, making it equivalent to (ib) even though nice could in principle evaluate a proposition (as in the proposition that S is nice) or a possibility (as in the possibility that S is nice).
Other predicates may apply only to possibilities, for example exclude. Thus (iia) can only be understood as equivalent to (iib), even though there is a sense in which facts and claims can be excluded too:
- (ii):
-
a. That John might get elected is excluded.
b. The possibility that John might get elected is excluded.
Only in the presence of a suitable predicate can a that-clause in subject position stand for a contextually given claim or suggestion, for example with true or correct. This means that with (apparent) subject clauses the silent head noun of the subject DP cannot be freely chosen, unlike the overt head noun in the construction the claim that S.
The following critique also applies to Künne’s (2003) minimalist account.
On that view, that-clauses semantically act as predicates of attitudinal objects and the sharing of a propositional content consists in two agents engaging either in attitudinal objects that are closely similar (that is, the same in content) or in the same kind of attitudinal object (Moltmann 2003b, 2013a, 2014, 2017c).
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Acknowledgements
This paper has benefitted greatly from comments of two referees and the editor of the special issue Jeremy Wyatt. It also has benefitted from comments by Rögnvaldur Ingthorsson, Bruno Leclercq, Paolo Leonardi, Benjamin Nelson, and Stephen Yablo. Previous versions of the paper were presented at the workshop Truth, Contextualism, and Semantic Paradox at Ohio State University, Columbus, March 29–30, 2017 and the workshop Force, Content and the Unity of the Proposition at the University of Vienna, May 19–20, 2017, and I would like to thank the audiences for discussion.
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Moltmann, F. Truth predicates, truth bearers, and their variants. Synthese 198 (Suppl 2), 689–716 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-1814-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-1814-8