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Full Idea
'It's true that Fido is a dog' gives rise to a contrastive focus on 'true', with the contrast class probably depending on members like 'it's false that...' or 'it's unlikely that...'.
Gist of Idea
'It's true that Fido is a dog' conjures up a contrast class, of 'it's false' or 'it's unlikely'
Source
Thomas Hofweber (Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics [2016], 02.6.3)
Book Ref
Hofweber,Thomas: 'Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics' [OUP 2018], p.47
A Reaction
If we introduce (from linguistics) the idea of a 'contrast class', then Ramsey's famous example begins to sound meaningful. It might occur in a discussion of 'did Antony actually say 'Friends, Romans. countrymen'?'
Related Idea
Idea 3750 "It is true that x" means no more than x [Ramsey]
14777 | That a judgement is true and that we judge it true are quite different things [Peirce] |
19468 | The property of truth in 'It is true that I smell violets' adds nothing to 'I smell violets' [Frege] |
14176 | "The death of Caesar is true" is not the same proposition as "Caesar died" [Russell] |
3750 | "It is true that x" means no more than x [Ramsey] |
19197 | Truth can't be eliminated from universal claims, or from particular unspecified claims [Tarski] |
11074 | 'It is true that this follows' means simply: this follows [Wittgenstein] |
9011 | Truth is redundant for single sentences; we do better to simply speak the sentence [Quine] |
2347 | Asserting the truth of an indexical statement is not the same as uttering the statement [Putnam] |
19153 | Truth is basic and clear, so don't try to replace it with something simpler [Davidson] |
6335 | The redundancy theory cannot explain inferences from 'what x said is true' and 'x said p', to p [Horwich] |
12439 | Truth is dispensable, by replacing truth claims with the sentence itself [Azzouni] |
21640 | 'It's true that Fido is a dog' conjures up a contrast class, of 'it's false' or 'it's unlikely' [Hofweber] |
14008 | The redundancy theory conflates metalinguistic bivalence with object-language excluded middle [Bourne] |