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Judgement and Truth in Early Analytic Philosophy and Phenomenology pp 157–182Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The Myth of the Coherence Theory of Truth

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

Abstract

Although its use is not universal, there is a map of the logical space of theories of truth that is widely applied. According to this map, the most foundational divide amongst theories of truth is that between deflationary and inflationary theories, where, roughly, the former hold that truth is an insubstantial, logical property of little philosophical interest and the latter that it is a substantial property suitable for philosophical attention. Amongst the inflationary theories, there are other fundamental divisions. For example, on the one hand, correspondence theorists hold that the truth of a proposition is a matter of the proposition’s standing in a relation to something else which is not a proposition, such as a fact. On the other hand, coherence theorists hold that the truth of a proposition is a matter of its relations to other propositions. And again, pragmatists hold that the truth of a proposition is a matter of its being useful to believe.

Under all the circumstances, this supposition recalls to me a vulgar story current in my youth, of a doctor who, finding himself unequal to treating the patient’s actual ailment, proposed to inoculate him with a quite different malady, ‘for’, he said, ‘I’m death on that’

Bernard Bosanquet, on the misrepresentation of his theory of truth (1911: 263)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Western Australia, Australia

    Nic Damnjanovic & Stewart Candlish

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  1. Nic Damnjanovic
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  2. Stewart Candlish
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  1. King’s College London, UK

    Mark Textor

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© 2013 Nic Damnjanovic and Stewart Candlish

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Damnjanovic, N., Candlish, S. (2013). The Myth of the Coherence Theory of Truth. In: Textor, M. (eds) Judgement and Truth in Early Analytic Philosophy and Phenomenology. History of Analytic Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137286338_8

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