| 20780 | Graspable presentations are criteria of facts, and are molded according to their objects [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Of presentations, some are graspable, some non-graspable. The graspable presentation, which they say is the criterion of facts [pragmata], is that which comes from an existing object and is stamped and molded in accordance wth the existing object itself. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.46 | |
| A reaction: [in lost Physics Bk 2] The big modern anguish over truth-as-correspondence is how you are supposed to verify the 'accordance'. This idea seems to blur the ideas of truth and justification (the 'criterion'), and you can't have both as accordance. |
| 23483 | Proposition elements correlate with objects, but the whole picture does not correspond to a fact [Wittgenstein, by Morris,M] |
| Full Idea: Correlation need only be between elements of the picture and things in reality; it is not also required that there be a correspondence between the picture as a whole and a fact in reality - so things can be depicted falsely. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 2.15121) by Michael Morris - Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus 3C | |
| A reaction: To turn his picture theory into a correspondence theory of truth would need a further step, of saying the proposition is true when the two structures coincide. I don't think LW says that. |
| 13985 | A true proposition seems true of one fact, but a false proposition seems true of nothing at all. [Ryle] |
| Full Idea: Whereas there might be just one fact that a true proposition was like, we would have to say that a false proposition was unlike any fact. We could not speak of the fact that it was false of, so we could not speak of its being false of anything at all. | |
| From: Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], 'Objections') | |
| A reaction: Ryle brings out very nicely the point Russell emphasised so much, that the most illuminating studies in philosophy are of how falsehood works, rather than of how truths work. If I say 'the Queen is really a man' it is obvious what that is false of. |
| 10843 | Facts aren't exactly true statements, but they are what those statements say [Strawson,P] |
| Full Idea: Facts are what statements (when true) state; they are not what statements are about. ..But it would be wrong to identify 'fact' and 'true statement' for these expressions have different roles in our language. | |
| From: Peter F. Strawson (Truth [1950], §2) | |
| A reaction: Personally I like to reserve the word 'facts' for what is out there, independent of any human thought or speech. As a realist, I believe that the facts are quite independent of our attempts to understand the facts. True statements attempt to state facts. |
| 10842 | The fact which is stated by a true sentence is not something in the world [Strawson,P] |
| Full Idea: The fact which is stated by a true sentence is not something in the world. | |
| From: Peter F. Strawson (Truth [1950], §2) | |
| A reaction: Everything is in the world. This may just be a quibble over how we should use the word 'fact'. At some point the substance of what is stated in a sentence must eventually be out there, or we would never act on what we say. |
| 13469 | Tarski showed how we could have a correspondence theory of truth, without using 'facts' [Hart,WD] |
| Full Idea: It is an ancient and honourable view that truth is correspondence to fact; Tarski showed us how to do without facts here. | |
| From: William D. Hart (The Evolution of Logic [2010], 2) | |
| A reaction: This is a very interesting spin on Tarski, who certainly seems to endorse the correspondence theory, even while apparently inventing a new 'semantic' theory of truth. It is controversial how far Tarski's theory really is a 'correspondence' theory. |
| 10355 | Facts can't make claims true, because they are true claims [Brandom, by Kusch] |
| Full Idea: Brandom says that facts do not make claims true, because facts simply are true claims. | |
| From: report of Robert B. Brandom (Making It Explicit [1994], p.327) by Martin Kusch - Knowledge by Agreement Ch.18 | |
| A reaction: Nice. Notoriously, anyone defending the correspondence theory of truth in terms of facts had better say what they mean by a 'fact'. Personally I take a fact to be a non-verbal, mind-independent situation in the world, so I disagree with Brandom. |
| 8315 | Maybe facts are just true propositions [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If facts are 'proposition-like' or 'thinkable' (we speak of 'knowing' or 'understanding' facts) might they not simply be true propositions? | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 11.2) | |
| A reaction: They certainly can't be if we are going to use facts as what makes propositions true. The proposal would be empty without out some other account of truth (probably a dubious one). Facts are truth-makers? |
| 18359 | One proposition can be made true by many different facts [David] |
| Full Idea: One proposition can be made true by many different facts (such as 'there are some happy dogs'). | |
| From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 1) |
| 18357 | What makes a disjunction true is simpler than the disjunctive fact it names [David] |
| Full Idea: The proposition that 'L is happy or hungry' can be made true by the fact that L is happy. This does not have the same complexity or constituent structure as the proposition it makes true. | |
| From: Marian David (Truth-making and Correspondence [2009], 1) |
| 4750 | The redundancy theory gets rid of facts, for 'it is a fact that p' just means 'p' [Engel] |
| Full Idea: The redundancy theory gets rid of facts, for 'it is a fact that p' just means 'p'. | |
| From: Pascal Engel (Truth [2002], §2.2) | |
| A reaction: But then when you ask what p means, you have to give the truth-conditions for its assertion, and you find you have to mention the facts after all. |
| 15333 | Modern correspondence is said to be with the facts, not with true propositions [Horsten] |
| Full Idea: Modern correspondence theorists no longer take things to correspond to true propositions; they consider facts to be the truthmakers of propositions. | |
| From: Leon Horsten (The Tarskian Turn [2011], 02.1) | |
| A reaction: If we then define facts as the way certain things are, independently from our thinking about it, at least we seem to be avoiding circularity. Not much point in correspondence accounts if you are not a robust realist (like me). [14,000th idea, 23/4/12!] |
| 17740 | Instead of correspondence of proposition to fact, look at correspondence of its parts [Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: Instead of considering only a proposition's 'correspondence to the facts', we should also consider the correspondence between parts of the proposition and parts of the world (a 'correspondence-as-congruence' view). | |
| From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], Final - Branching) | |
| A reaction: This is something like Russell's Othello example (1912), except that the parts there, with relations seemed to add up to the whole proposition. For Jenkins, presumably parts might correspond, but the whole proposition fail to. |