Pierce’s Conception of Truth

Abstract

For Sellars, what is true is what is correctly assertible within a conceptual structure under the semantic rules that describe that structure. But conceptual structures are not static; they evolve. And they do so, Sellars claims, in a well-determined fashion that makes each successor conceptual structure in a sense more adequate than its predecessor. So it is reasonable on that view to “conceive of a language which enables its users to form ideally adequate pictures of objects. . ,”¹ It would be the language sanctioned by the semantical rules of an ideal conceptual scheme. Sellars calls the language Teirceish.’ What is ultimately true, then, is what is correctly assertible according to the semantical rules of the Peirceish conceptual structure. More exactly, truth for Peirce, and for Sellars, is a limit concept. The ideal conceptual structure is provided by the ideal scientific theory. But the ideal scientific theory is something that is in principle unattainable. It is the end product of an in principle endless process of theory refinement.