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Single Idea 22301

[filed under theme 3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 2. Defining Truth ]

Full Idea

The Identity Theory of truth says a proposition is true just in case it coincides with what makes it true.

Gist of Idea

The Identity Theory says a proposition is true if it coincides with what makes it true

Source

Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 23 'Abs')

Book Ref

Potter,Michael: 'The Rise of Anaytic Philosophy 1879-1930' [Routledge 2020], p.152


A Reaction

The obvious question is how 'there are trees in the wood' can somehow 'coincide with' or 'be identical to' the situation outside my window. The theory is sort of right, but we will never define the relationship, which is no better than 'corresponds'.

Related Idea

Idea 22302 Moor bypassed problems of correspondence by saying true propositions ARE facts [Moore,GE, by Potter]


The 17 ideas from 'The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930'

Traditionally there are twelve categories of judgement, in groups of three [Potter]
Frege's sign |--- meant judgements, but the modern |- turnstile means inference, with intecedents [Potter]
A material conditional cannot capture counterfactual reasoning [Potter]
Compositionality should rely on the parsing tree, which may contain more than sentence components [Potter]
'Direct compositonality' says the components wholly explain a sentence meaning [Potter]
'Greater than', which is the ancestral of 'successor', strictly orders the natural numbers [Potter]
Impredicative definitions are circular, but fine for picking out, rather than creating something [Potter]
Deductivism can't explain how the world supports unconditional conclusions [Potter]
If 'concrete' is the negative of 'abstract', that means desires and hallucinations are concrete [Potter]
The phrase 'the concept "horse"' can't refer to a concept, because it is saturated [Potter]
Modern logical truths are true under all interpretations of the non-logical words [Potter]
Compositionality is more welcome in logic than in linguistics (which is more contextual) [Potter]
Why is fictional arithmetic applicable to the real world? [Potter]
The Identity Theory says a proposition is true if it coincides with what makes it true [Potter]
The formalist defence against Gödel is to reject his metalinguistic concept of truth [Potter]
It has been unfortunate that externalism about truth is equated with correspondence [Potter]
Knowledge from a drunken schoolteacher is from a reliable and unreliable process [Potter]