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Single Idea 19165

[filed under theme 3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 1. Correspondence Truth ]

Full Idea

Aristotle's formulation postulates no entities like facts. The things of which we say that they are or that they are not are the entities adverted to by the referring parts of sentences, not by sentences as wholes.

Gist of Idea

Aristotle's truth formulation concerns referring parts of sentences, not sentences as wholes

Source

report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1011b21) by Donald Davidson - Truth and Predication 6

Book Ref

Davidson,Donald: 'Truth and Predication' [Belknap Harvard 2005], p.127


A Reaction

Aristotle seems to refer to the existences or non-existences of things. Presumably this would mean referring not to an apple, but to a red apple or a green apple, seen as two different things, even though they were the 'same' apple?

Related Idea

Idea 586 Falsity says that which is isn't, and that which isn't is; truth says that which is is, and that which isn't isn't [Aristotle]


The 35 ideas with the same theme [truth is a successful match between mental states and reality]:

Truths say of what is that it is, falsehoods say of what is that it is not [Plato]
A statement is true if all the data are in harmony with it [Aristotle]
Statements are true according to how things actually are [Aristotle]
Falsity says that which is isn't, and that which isn't is; truth says that which is is, and that which isn't isn't [Aristotle]
Aristotle's truth formulation concerns referring parts of sentences, not sentences as wholes [Aristotle, by Davidson]
Truth is the conformity of being to intellect [Aquinas]
A proposition is true if its subject and predicate stand for the same thing [William of Ockham]
A true idea must correspond with its ideate or object [Spinoza]
Truth is correspondence between mental propositions and what they are about [Leibniz]
We must presuppose that truth is agreement of cognition with its objects [Kant]
The deeper sense of truth is a thing matching the idea of what it ought to be [Hegel]
Propositions of existence, generalities, disjunctions and hypotheticals make correspondence tricky [Russell]
Truth as congruence may work for complex beliefs, but not for simple beliefs about existence [Joslin on Russell]
Beliefs are true if they have corresponding facts, and false if they don't [Russell]
For Russell, both propositions and facts are arrangements of objects, so obviously they correspond [Horwich on Russell]
All thought has the logical form of reality [Wittgenstein]
Wittgenstein's picture theory is the best version of the correspondence theory of truth [Read on Wittgenstein]
Language is [propositions-elementary propositions-names]; reality is [facts-states of affairs-objects] [Wittgenstein, by Grayling]
The account of truth in the 'Tractatus' seems a perfect example of the correspondence theory [Wittgenstein, by O'Grady]
Pictures reach out to or feel reality, touching at the edges, correlating in its parts [Wittgenstein]
Science is sympathetic to truth as correspondence, since it depends on observation [Quine]
True sentences says the appropriate descriptive thing on the appropriate demonstrative occasion [Austin,JL]
We need the correspondence theory of truth to understand language and science [Putnam]
Before Kant, all philosophers had a correspondence theory of truth [Putnam]
Correspondence may be one-many or many one, as when either p or q make 'p or q' true [Armstrong]
Beliefs must match facts, but also words must match beliefs [O'Connor]
Names, descriptions and predicates refer to things; without that, language and thought are baffling [Davidson]
Correspondence can't be defined, but it shows how truth depends on the world [Davidson]
Correspondence to the facts HAS to be the aim of enquiry [Searle]
Truth has to be correspondence to facts, and a match between relations of ideas and relations in the world [Perry]
Some correspondence theories concern facts; others are built up through reference and satisfaction [Horwich]
Correspondence theory likes ideal languages, that reveal the structure of propositions [David]
Correspondence could be with other beliefs, rather than external facts [Kusch]
It has been unfortunate that externalism about truth is equated with correspondence [Potter]
Correspondence theories assume that truth is a representation relation [Rami]