Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to show that the correspondence theory as a truth-maker theory has certain advantages over some of the other theories of truth. The cost of this advantage is postulating extra entities—facts. However, the benefits outweigh the costs; facts facilitate our understanding of the nature of truth made by the world. Facts are required for understanding this world; therefore, one cannot claim that a separate cost is incurred for explaining truth. It is further argued that because of specific reasons the correspondence theory can be treated even better than the truth-maker theory and so the recommendation for correspondence as the most efficient theory of truth.
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Notes
Joachim (1906: 76).
There are exceptions like Davidson (1967).
Quine (1970: 12).
Quine (1987: 213).
Tarski (1956).
“I would only mention that throughout this work I shall be concerned exclusively with grasping the intention which is contained in the so-called classical conception of truth (‘true—corresponding with reality’) in contrast, for example with the utilitarian conception (‘true – in a certain respect useful’)”. Tarski (1956: 153); “We should like our definition to do justice to the intuitions which adhere to the classical Aristotelian conception of truth…well-known words of Aristotle’s Metaphysics: [“To say what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true"]”. Tarski (1944: 341–376).
“If we wished to adapt ourselves to modern philosophical terminology, we could perhaps express this [Aristotelian] conception by means of the familiar formula: The truth of a sentence consists in its agreement with (or correspondence to) reality. (For a theory of truth has to be based upon the latter formulation the term ‘correspondence theory’ has been suggested.). If, on the other hand, we should decide to extend the popular usage of the term ‘designate’ by applying it not only to names, but also to sentences, and if we agreed to speak of the designate of sentences as ‘states of affairs’, we could possibly use for the same purpose the following phrase: A sentence is true if it designates an existing states of affairs. However, all these formulations can lead to various misunderstandings, for none of them is sufficiently precise and clear (though this applies much less to the original Aristotelian formulation than to either of the others); at any rate, none of them can be considered a satisfactory definition of truth. It is up to us to look for a more precise expression of our intuitions”. Tarski (1944: 341–376).
See for a discussion O’Connor (1975).
For a defense of this view see Etchemendy (1988).
Russell (1967[1912]).
It has to be mentioned here that Russell’s philosophical views go through many phases. In The Problems of Philosophy (1912) and Theory of Knowledge (1913), Russell has an epistemological approach. In Our Knowledge of the External World (1914) and The Philosophy of Logical Atomism (1918), Russell exhibits phenomenalist tendencies. A few years later, in The Analysis of Mind (1921) as well as in An Outline of Philosophy (1927), Russell takes a psychological turn and shows interest in behaviourism and scientific psychology in general. This phase is developed mainly because of two reasons: Firstly, Russell ended up rejecting his theory of judgement (that judging is a relation between a subject and the elements of a judgement) as he was convinced by Wittgenstein’s criticisms on the matter. Secondly, in the phenomenalist phase Russell promoted the view that we do not perceive objects directly, but are acquainted with sense data, which are immediate objects of sensation. These factors prompted Russell to move closer towards a view of the relation of the mental and the physical that he had criticized before, Neutral Monism. According to this view, the mental and the physical are two ways of organizing or describing the same elements/reality which are ‘neutral’, neither mental nor physical. This, for Russell, eliminates the distinction between the subject and the object of a judgement. As it goes, from the beginning Russell has been pondering over the question ‘how can we be justified in what we know and how can we base our knowledge on a firm foundation’. After the phenomenalist phase, he rephrased the question into ‘how can we reconcile the knowledge of the physical world with our immediate sensory knowledge’. In An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (1940), he reevaluates his answers to such questions raised over the last three decades. Here, he adopts linguistic method as also concerned with the way in which our empirical beliefs are expressed in sentences such as ‘what justifies our empirical sentences’, etc. Sentences, like beliefs, have a certain content or meaning. Russell distinguishes two components of meaning at this stage: A psychological component, that is, what a sentence expresses and a truth-conditional component, that is, what the sentence indicates which is in general a fact or a state of affairs in the world. For instance, the sentence ‘the cat is on the mat’, uttered by me at a certain time and place, expresses my belief that there is a cat on the mat and indicates the fact that the cat is on the mat. That is, truth-conditional component is made of various entities in the world such as things, their properties or relations and facts which combined in particular way make our sentences true. To quote Russell, “…an indicative sentence “expresses” a state of the speaker, and “indicates” a fact or fails to do so. The problem of truth and falsehood has to do with “indication”. It appeared that truth and falsehood apply primarily to beliefs, and only derivatively to sentences as “expressing” beliefs.” Russell (1992[1940]: 214).
Correspondence theories originated with Plato’s discussion of false belief in ‘the Sophist’. Then, Aristotle proposed a theory that is usually taken to be correspondence theory. Thereafter, Descartes and Kant are known supporters of this theory. In the 20th century, Russell developed correspondence theory primarily as a response to the coherence theory promoted by the British Idealists. Austin (1950) offered a version of the correspondence theory after Russell.
Russell (1967[1912]:72).
For further discussion, see Austin (1950).
Bottani and Davis (2006: 12).
The notion of truth-maker can be traced back as far as Aristotle. In the recent past Kevin Mulligan, Peter Simons and Barry Smith used the term in their collaborative work in (1984).
Horwich (2009) suggests that instead of necessitation it should have been explanation.
Armstrong (2004).
Armstrong (1997: 116).
Armstrong (2004). The opposite is minimalism, which goes well with Quinean nominalism that rejects facts as entities.
Bigelow (2009: 393).
Armstrong (1997: 14).
David (2009).
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Author would like to thank sincerely the anonymous referees for their helpful comments on the earlier version of this paper.
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Sangeetha, K.S. A Recommendation for Correspondence Theory of Truth. J. Indian Counc. Philos. Res. 33, 465–480 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-016-0061-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-016-0061-y