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Single Idea 9594
[filed under theme 3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique
]
Full Idea
Even if talk of truth as correspondence to the facts is metaphorical, it is a bad metaphor for analytic truth in a way that it is not for synthetic truth.
Gist of Idea
Correspondence to the facts is a bad account of analytic truth
Source
Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], 3.1)
Book Ref
Williamson,Timothy: 'The Philosophy of Philosophy' [Blackwell 2007], p.54
A Reaction
A very simple and rather powerful point. Maybe the word 'truth' should be withheld from such cases. You might say that accepted analytic truths are 'conventional'. If that is wrong, then they correspond to natural facts at a high level of abstraction.
The
28 ideas
with the same theme
[criticism of the correspondence theory of truth]:
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20793
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How could you ever know that the presentation is similar to the object?
[Sext.Empiricus on Chrysippus]
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22309
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An idea can only be like another idea
[Berkeley]
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19465
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There cannot be complete correspondence, because ideas and reality are quite different
[Frege]
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18983
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In many cases there is no obvious way in which ideas can agree with their object
[James]
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16296
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Tarski's Theorem renders any precise version of correspondence impossible
[Tarski, by Halbach]
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13984
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Two maps might correspond to one another, but they are only 'true' of the country they show
[Ryle]
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10836
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Correspondence theorists shouldn't think that a country has just one accurate map
[Austin,JL]
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6277
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Correspondence between concepts and unconceptualised reality is impossible
[Putnam]
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4716
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The correspondence theory is wrong, because there is no one correspondence between reality and fact
[Putnam, by O'Grady]
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23298
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Neither Aristotle nor Tarski introduce the facts needed for a correspondence theory
[Davidson]
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18902
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Correspondence theories can't tell you what truths correspond to
[Davidson]
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19148
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There is nothing interesting or instructive for truths to correspond to
[Davidson]
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19166
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The Slingshot assumes substitutions give logical equivalence, and thus identical correspondence
[Davidson]
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19167
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Two sentences can be rephrased by equivalent substitutions to correspond to the same thing
[Davidson]
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2572
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Logical truth seems much less likely to 'correspond to the facts' than factual truth does
[Haack]
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10908
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Correspondence has to invoke facts or states of affairs, just to serve as truth-makers
[Mulligan/Simons/Smith]
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2768
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The correspondence theory also has the problem that two sets of propositions might fit the facts equally well
[Dancy,J]
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6332
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The common-sense theory of correspondence has never been worked out satisfactorily
[Horwich]
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3593
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The only way to specify the corresponding fact is asserting the sentence
[Williams,M]
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6084
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'Snow does not fall' corresponds to snow does fall
[McGinn]
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6085
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The idea of truth is built into the idea of correspondence
[McGinn]
|
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2959
|
If something is described in two different ways, is that two facts, or one fact presented in two ways?
[Lockwood]
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8319
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One-to-one correspondence would need countable, individuable items
[Lowe]
|
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9594
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Correspondence to the facts is a bad account of analytic truth
[Williamson]
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4744
|
We can't explain the corresponding structure of the world except by referring to our thoughts
[Engel]
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14391
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If the correspondence theory is right, then necessary truths must correspond to something
[Merricks]
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14418
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Being true is not a relation, it is a primitive monadic property
[Merricks]
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15337
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The correspondence 'theory' is too vague - about both 'correspondence' and 'facts'
[Horsten]
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