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Can Deflationism Account for the Norm of Truth?

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Unifying the Philosophy of Truth

Part of the book series: Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science ((LEUS,volume 36))

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Abstract

Deflationism about truth has to deny that there is a norm of truth which governs assertion and belief. This article examines two strategies that the deflationist can take. The first is a form of error-theory: there no such thing as a norm for assertion and belief. Against this argue that if the deflationist accepts that there is no more to a belief or an assertion being correct than the belief or assertion being true, the deflationist has no account of the correctness of belief or of assertion. The second strategy for the deflationist consists in accepting the correctness feature, but in denying that this feature carries any weight. I argue that this strategy too fails. Although my defense of this claim is here purely negative, truth has a normative import, and the norm of truth is a substantive property attached to truth.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Horwich 1990/1998 takes < p > to range over propositions. Disquotational versions take it to range over sentences. The difference will not matter here, although I shall stick to Horwich’s version.

  2. 2.

    I borrow this formulation from Blackburn 2012. In substance, these claims are those defended with an exemplary clarity by Horwich 1990/1998. For reviews of various versions of deflationism, see David 1994, Hawhorne and Oppy 1997, Field 2001, Engel 2002, Hill 2002, Stoljar 2010.

  3. 3.

    For more, see Engel 2005, 2007, 2013, 2013a, b.

  4. 4.

    Aquinas, Summa theol. Ia, q. 16, a. 1; q. 21, a. 2, Hegel, Enzyklopädie, Wissenschaft der Logik [1830, Suhrkamp Verlag 1986, Band 8 ], § 213 and n.; § 172; § 24 n. 2, quoted by Künne 2003, 10-3-104. Thanks to Davide Fassio for the reference.

  5. 5.

    These principles could be strengthened by making them biconditionals, but the present formulation will suffice for our present purposes.

  6. 6.

    See Kenny 1963, p. 189.

  7. 7.

    Wedgwood 2007, p. 158.

  8. 8.

    Shah 2010, p. 101.

  9. 9.

    This view has been defended at one stage by David Velleman 2000. It is explicitly defended by Sosa 2011.

  10. 10.

    In a sense not far from the one which is advocated by Kölbel 2002 and other contemporary versions of relativism about truth (MacFarlane 2005).

  11. 11.

    Horwich 1990, Dodd 1999, p. 297,see also Blackburn 2013.

  12. 12.

    Mc Grath 2003.

  13. 13.

    See also Engel 2008 for a similar criticism.

  14. 14.

    See Wright 1992, Lynch 2008, and for an examination of how pluralism can deal (and in my view fails to deal) with the norm of truth, see Engel 2013.

  15. 15.

    I have developped it elsewhere in Engel 2007, 2013 and 2013b.

  16. 16.

    The deflationist could here argue, once again, that if the norm of truth is supposed to define belief, it is not a norm in any interesting sense. He can also argue that it is no constitutive of the concept of belief either. I shall not here deal with these objections.

  17. 17.

    Related, although distinct, versions of this article have been read in various versions in Amsterdam in March 2011at the conference “Truth be told” organized by Dora Achouriotti and Peter van Ormondt, and then at the Paris conference organized by Henri Galinon and Dennis Bonnay in June 2011. I thank them all for their invitations and hospitality, and my commentator at Amsterdam Timothy Chan for his excellent remarks. I thank José Martinez and Henri Galinon for their patience and indulgence, and anonymous referees for their comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. EHESS, Paris, France

    Pascal Engel

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  1. Pascal Engel
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Correspondence to Pascal Engel .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy, ILLC & AUC - University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Theodora Achourioti

  2. PHIER, Université Blaise Pascal, Clermont Ferrrand, France

    Henri Galinon

  3. Lògica, Història i Filosofia de la Ciència, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    José Martínez Fernández

  4. Department of Mathematics and Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom

    Kentaro Fujimoto

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Engel, P. (2015). Can Deflationism Account for the Norm of Truth?. In: Achourioti, T., Galinon, H., Martínez Fernández, J., Fujimoto, K. (eds) Unifying the Philosophy of Truth. Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, vol 36. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9673-6_11

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