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The History and Philosophy of Polish Logic pp 141–159Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Against Relative Truth

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Part of the book series: History of Analytic Philosophy ((History of Analytic Philosophy))

Abstract

Jan Woleński and Peter Simons give in their article ‘De Veritate’ (1989) a vivid account of the ‘Austro-Polish obsession with truth’. Another impressive proof of this obsession is the collection of Woleński’s historical essays (Woleński, 1999a). After Kazimierz Twardowski’s seminal paper in 1900, Polish logicians and philosophers have been staunch and passionate supporters of the absolute notion of truth. Woleński and Simons (1989, p. 422) even suggest that Alfred Tarski did not introduce relativization of truth to a model in the 1930s ‘for fear it would lead to relativism’. On the other hand, what Tarski called the ‘the classical Aristotelian conception of truth’ is a relational notion, as shown by the medieval formula veritas est adequatio rei et intellectus (Woleński, 1993, p. 330). This relational character is compatible with the objectivity of truth. Indeed, in my view, Tarski’s model-theoretical concept of truth amended with the notion of truthlikeness provides an adequate basis for a fallibilist critical scientific realism (see Niiniluoto, 1987; 1999a). While some ways of relativizing truth are ‘innocent’ from the viewpoint of a realist, who wishes to defend the epistemological status of science, it is important to show why relativists of various sorts are mistaken in their claims that all truths are relative to persons, communities, cultures, beliefs, paradigms, or perspectives.1

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Authors
  1. Ilkka Niiniluoto
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Geneva, Switzerland

    Kevin Mulligan

  2. Jagiellonian University, Poland

    Katarzyna Kijania-Placek  & Tomasz Placek  & 

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© 2014 Ilkka Niiniluoto

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Niiniluoto, I. (2014). Against Relative Truth. In: Mulligan, K., Kijania-Placek, K., Placek, T. (eds) The History and Philosophy of Polish Logic. History of Analytic Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137030894_8

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