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Full Idea
The common-sense notion that truth is a kind of 'correspondence with the facts' has never been worked out to anyone's satisfaction.
Gist of Idea
The common-sense theory of correspondence has never been worked out satisfactorily
Source
Paul Horwich (Truth (2nd edn) [1990], Ch.1)
Book Ref
Horwich,Paul: 'Truth (2nd edn)' [OUP 1998], p.1
A Reaction
I've put this in to criticise it. Philosophy can't work by rejecting theories which can't be 'worked out', and accepting theories (like Tarski's) because they can be 'worked out'. All our theories will end up minimal, and defiant of common sense.
| 23299 | Horwich's deflationary view is novel, because it relies on propositions rather than sentences [Horwich, by Davidson] |
| 6332 | The common-sense theory of correspondence has never been worked out satisfactorily [Horwich] |
| 6336 | No deflationary conception of truth does justice to the fact that we aim for truth [Horwich] |
| 6337 | The deflationary picture says believing a theory true is a trivial step after believing the theory [Horwich] |
| 6334 | The function of the truth predicate? Understanding 'true'? Meaning of 'true'? The concept of truth? A theory of truth? [Horwich] |
| 6335 | The redundancy theory cannot explain inferences from 'what x said is true' and 'x said p', to p [Horwich] |
| 6338 | We could know the truth-conditions of a foreign sentence without knowing its meaning [Horwich] |
| 6339 | Logical form is the aspects of meaning that determine logical entailments [Horwich] |
| 6340 | There are Fregean de dicto propositions, and Russellian de re propositions, or a mixture [Horwich] |
| 6341 | Right translation is a mapping of languages which preserves basic patterns of usage [Horwich] |
| 6342 | Some correspondence theories concern facts; others are built up through reference and satisfaction [Horwich] |
| 6344 | Truth is a useful concept for unarticulated propositions and generalisations about them [Horwich] |