Created by Nicole Dane
almost 8 years ago
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Question | Answer |
Three claims a theory of truth must explain or at least allow to be adequate | !, Truth has an opposite, namely falsehood. 2. Truth and falsehood are properties of beliefs and statements. 3. “Although truth and falsehood are properties of beliefs, they are properties dependent upon the relations of the beliefs to other things, not upon any internal quality of the beliefs.” |
According to Russell, we adopt the view that: | Truth consists in some form of correspondence between belief and fact. |
Austin's First Objection to Russel's Formulation | 1. “[I]t may be doubted whether the expression ‘a true belief’ is at all common outside philosophy and theology: and it seems clear that a man [sic] is said to hold a true belief when and in the sense that he believes (in) something which is true.” - So truth isn’t a property of beliefs, and so not a matter of correspondence between a belief and something else. Response: Truth is a property of statements, and so a matter of correspondence (or “correlation”) between statements and something. - The clarification: The distinction between statements and sentences. (Eg “It is mine.”) |
Austin's Second Objection to Russel's Formulation | 2. “‘[F]act’ is only an alternative expression for ‘true statement’.” - So truth can’t be a matter of the correspondence with the facts: that would say a statement is true if it corresponds with a statement that says the same thing. Instead: Truth is a matter of the correspondence of statements to states of affairs. |
Post-script: Russell on the coherence theory, according to which “the mark of falsehood is failure to cohere in the body of our beliefs.” | Two problems: ‘[T]here is no reason to suppose that only one coherent set of beliefs is possible.” The laws of logic on which the test relies cannot be established by that test. |
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