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Full Idea
Rather than speak of truth, we do better simply to say the sentence and so speak not about language but about the world. Of singly given sentences, the perfect theory of truth is the 'disappearance theory of truth' (Sellars).
Gist of Idea
Truth is redundant for single sentences; we do better to simply speak the sentence
Source
Willard Quine (Philosophy of Logic [1970], Ch.1)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Philosophy of Logic' [Prentice-Hall 1970], p.11
A Reaction
Quine defends truth as the crucial link between language and reality, but only for large groups of sentences. If someone accuses you of lying or being incorrect, you can respond by repeating your sentence in a firmer tone of voice.
| 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] |