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3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 2. Deflationary Truth

[truth has no nature, and refers to nothing]

32 ideas
True and false statements can use exactly the same words [Anon (Diss)]
     Full Idea: There is no difference between a true statement and a false statement, because they can use exactly the same words.
     From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §4)
Semantics is a very modest discipline which solves no real problems [Tarski]
     Full Idea: Semantics as it is conceived in this paper is a sober and modest discipline which has no pretensions to being a universal patent-medicine for all the ills and diseases of mankind, whether imaginary or real.
     From: Alfred Tarski (The Semantic Conception of Truth [1944], 05)
     A reaction: Written in 1944. This remark encourages the minimal or deflationary interpretation of his theory of truth, but see the robust use of 'satisfaction' in Idea 19184.
We cannot analyse the concept of 'truth', because it is simply a mark that a sentence is asserted [Ayer]
     Full Idea: When one says that "Queen Anne is dead" is true or false, these terms 'true' and 'false' connote nothing, but function in the sentence simply as marks of assertion and denial, so there is no sense in asking us to analyse the concept of 'truth'.
     From: A.J. Ayer (Language,Truth and Logic [1936], Ch.5)
     A reaction: "I am ill" may be true when you say it, and false when I say it. The word 'true' has a useful function in 'x is true if y'. "If that is true, Freddie, I will hit you".
'Truth' may only apply within a theory [Kuhn]
     Full Idea: 'Truth' may, like 'proof', be a term with only intra-theoretic applications.
     From: Thomas S. Kuhn (Reflections on my Critics [1970], §5)
     A reaction: I think we can blame Tarski (via Quine, Kuhn's teacher) for this one. I take it to be an utter failure to grasp the meaning of the word 'truth' (and sneakily substituting 'satisfaction' for it). For a start, we have to compare theories on some basis.
Tarski is not a disquotationalist, because you can assign truth to a sentence you can't quote [Davidson]
     Full Idea: It is clearly a mistake to call Tarski a disquotationalist. ...We say of a sentence not at hand (such as 'You gave the right answer to this question last night, but I can't remember what you said') that it is true or false.
     From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 7)
Disquotation only accounts for truth if the metalanguage contains the object language [Davidson]
     Full Idea: Disquotation cannot pretend to give a complete account of the concept of truth, since it works only in the special case where the metalanguage contains the object language. Neither can contain their own truth predicate.
     From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], p.10)
     A reaction: Presumably more sophisticated and complete accounts would need a further account of translation between languages - which explains Quine's interest in that topic. […see this essay, p.12]
We need the concept of truth for defeasible reasoning [Pollock]
     Full Idea: It might be wondered why we even have a concept of truth. The answer is that this concept is required for defeasible reasoning.
     From: John L. Pollock (Epistemic Norms [1986], 'Cog.Mach')
     A reaction: His point is that we must be able to think critically about our beliefs ('is p true?') if we are to have any knowledge at all. An excellent point. Give that man a teddy bear.
Horwich's deflationary view is novel, because it relies on propositions rather than sentences [Horwich, by Davidson]
     Full Idea: Horwich's brave and striking move is to make the primary bearers of truth propositions - not exactly a new idea in itself, but new in the context of a serious attempt to defend deflationism.
     From: report of Paul Horwich (Truth (2nd edn) [1990]) by Donald Davidson - The Folly of Trying to Define Truth p.30
     A reaction: Davidson rejects propositions because they can't be individuated, but I totally accept propositions. I'm puzzled why this would produce a deflationist theory, since I think it points to a much more robust view.
No deflationary conception of truth does justice to the fact that we aim for truth [Horwich]
     Full Idea: It has been suggested that no deflationary conception of truth could do justice to the fact that we aim for the truth.
     From: Paul Horwich (Truth (2nd edn) [1990], Ch.2.11)
     A reaction: (He mentions Dummett and Wright). People don't only aim for it - they become very idealistic about it, and sometimes die for it. Personally I think that any study of truth should use as its example police investigations, not philosophical analysis.
The deflationary picture says believing a theory true is a trivial step after believing the theory [Horwich]
     Full Idea: According to the deflationary picture, believing that a theory is true is a trivial step beyond believing the theory.
     From: Paul Horwich (Truth (2nd edn) [1990], Ch.2.17)
     A reaction: What has gone wrong with this picture is that you cannot (it seems to me) give a decent account of belief without mentioning truth. To believe a proposition is to hold it true. Hume's emotional account (Idea 2208) makes belief bewildering.
Truth is a useful concept for unarticulated propositions and generalisations about them [Horwich]
     Full Idea: All uses of the truth predicate are explained by the hypothesis that its entire raison d'ętre is to help us say things about unarticulated propositions, and in particular to express generalisations about them.
     From: Paul Horwich (Truth (2nd edn) [1990], Concl)
     A reaction: This certain is a very deflationary notion of truth. Articulated propositions are considered to stand on their own two feet, without need of 'is true'. He makes truth sound like a language game, though. Personally I prefer to mention reality.
'True' is only occasionally useful, as in 'everything Fermat believed was true' [Burgess/Rosen]
     Full Idea: In the disquotational view of truth, what saves truth from being wholly redundant and so wholly useless, is mainly that it provides an ability to state generalisations like 'Everything Fermat believed was true'.
     From: JP Burgess / G Rosen (A Subject with No Object [1997], I.A.2.c)
     A reaction: Sounds like the thin end of the wedge. Presumably we can infer that the first thing Fermat believed on his last Christmas Day was true.
Deflationism seems to block philosophers' main occupation, asking metatheoretical questions [Engel]
     Full Idea: Deflationism about truth seems to deprive us of any hope of asking genuinely metatheoretical questions, which are the questions that occupy philosophers most of the time.
     From: Pascal Engel (Truth [2002], §2.5)
     A reaction: This seems like the best reason for moving from deflationism to at least minimalism. Clearly one can talk meaningfully about the success of assertions and theories. You can say a sentence is true, but not assert it.
Deflationism cannot explain why we hold beliefs for reasons [Engel]
     Full Idea: The deflationist view is silent about the fact that our assertions and beliefs are generally made or held for certain reasons.
     From: Pascal Engel (Truth [2002], §2.5)
     A reaction: The point here must be that I attribute strength to my beliefs, depending on how much support I have for them - how much support for their real truth. I scream "That's really TRUE!" when I have very good reasons.
Deflationism just says there is no property of being truth [Merricks]
     Full Idea: I take 'deflationism' to be nothing other than the claim that there is no property of being true.
     From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 8.V)
Truth lets us assent to sentences we can't explicitly exhibit [Azzouni]
     Full Idea: My take on truth is a fairly deflationary one: The role of the truth predicate is to enable us to assent to sentences we can't explicitly exhibit.
     From: Jody Azzouni (Deflating Existential Consequence [2004], Intro)
     A reaction: Clearly this is a role for truth, as in 'I forget what he said, but I know it was true', but it isn't remotely what most people understand by true. We use 'true' about totally explicit sentences all the time.
Inferential deflationism says truth has no essence because no unrestricted logic governs the concept [Horsten]
     Full Idea: According to 'inferential deflationism', truth is a concept without a nature or an essence. This is betrayed by the fact that there are no unrestricted logical laws that govern the concept of truth.
     From: Leon Horsten (The Tarskian Turn [2011], 01.1)
Deflationism skips definitions and models, and offers just accounts of basic laws of truth [Horsten]
     Full Idea: Contemporary deflationism about truth does not attempt to define truth, and does not rely on models containing the truth predicate. Instead they are interpretations of axiomatic theories of truth, containing only basic laws of truth.
     From: Leon Horsten (The Tarskian Turn [2011], 02.3)
Deflationism concerns the nature and role of truth, but not its laws [Horsten]
     Full Idea: Deflationism is not a theory of the laws of truth. It is a view on the nature and role of the concept of truth.
     From: Leon Horsten (The Tarskian Turn [2011], 05 Intro)
Deflationism says truth isn't a topic on its own - it just concerns what is true [Horsten]
     Full Idea: Deflationism says the theory of truth does not have a substantial domain of its own. The domain of the theory of truth consists of the bearers of truth.
     From: Leon Horsten (The Tarskian Turn [2011], 05.1)
     A reaction: The immediate thought is that truth also concerns falsehoods, which would be inexplicable without it. If physics just concerns the physical, does that mean that physics lacks its own 'domain'? Generalising about the truths is a topic.
Deflation: instead of asserting a sentence, we can treat it as an object with the truth-property [Horsten]
     Full Idea: The Deflationary view just says that instead of asserting a sentence, we can turn the sentence into an object and assert that this object has the property of truth.
     From: Leon Horsten (The Tarskian Turn [2011], 05.2.2)
     A reaction: That seems to leave a big question hanging, which concerns the nature of the property that is being attributed to this object. Quine 1970:10-13 says it is just a 'device'. Surely you can rest content with that as an account of truth?
This deflationary account says truth has a role in generality, and in inference [Horsten]
     Full Idea: On the conception of deflationism developed in this book, the prime positive role of the truth predicate is to serve as a device for expressing generalities, and an inferential tool.
     From: Leon Horsten (The Tarskian Turn [2011], 07.5)
Deflationist truth is an infinitely disjunctive property [Rami]
     Full Idea: According to the moderate deflationist truth is an infinitely disjunctive property.
     From: Adolph Rami (Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making [2009], 10)
     A reaction: [He cites Horwich 1998] That is, I presume, that truth is embodied in an infinity of propositions of the form '"p" is true iff p'.
Deflating the correspondence theory doesn't entail deflating all the other theories [Misak]
     Full Idea: We must not move seamlessly from the thought that the correspondence theory must be deflated to the thought that any theory of truth must be deflated.
     From: Cheryl Misak (Pragmatism and Deflationism [2007], 2)
     A reaction: This rather good essay offers the idea that Peircean pragmatic approaches to truth can meet the deflationary desires of the opponents of correspondence, without jettisoning all the crucial naturalistic connections with reality. Interesting.
Deflationism isn't a theory of truth, but an account of its role in natural language [Misak]
     Full Idea: Deflationist theories are not theories of truth, or theories of what truth is. ...They are theories which try to explain the role that 'true' plays in natural languages.
     From: Cheryl Misak (Pragmatism and Deflationism [2007], 3)
     A reaction: [She cites Dorothy Grover 2001,2002] If so, then the modern axiomatic theory of truth sounds appealing, because it tries to give a fuller and more precise account than a mere list is disquotations could possibly give.
Deflationism says truth is a disquotation device to express generalisations, adding no new knowledge [Halbach]
     Full Idea: There are two doctrines at the core of deflationism. The first says truth is a device of disquotation used to express generalisations, and the second says truth is a thin notion that contributes nothing to our knowledge of the world
     From: Volker Halbach (Axiomatic Theories of Truth [2011], 21)
The main problem for deflationists is they can express generalisations, but not prove them [Halbach]
     Full Idea: The main criticism that deflationist theories based on the disquotation sentences or similar axioms have to meet was raised by Tarski: the disquotation sentences do not allow one to prove generalisations.
     From: Volker Halbach (Axiomatic Theories of Truth [2011], 7)
Deflationists say truth is just for expressing infinite conjunctions or generalisations [Halbach]
     Full Idea: Deflationists do not hold that truth is completely dispensable. They claim that truth serves the purpose of expressing infinite conjunctions or generalisations.
     From: Volker Halbach (Axiomatic Theories of Truth [2011], 7)
     A reaction: It is also of obvious value as a shorthand in ordinary conversation, but rigorous accounts can paraphrase that out. 'What he said is true'. 'Pick out the true sentences from p,q,r and s' seems to mean 'affirm some of them'. What does 'affirm' mean?
Some say deflationism is axioms which are conservative over the base theory [Halbach]
     Full Idea: Some authors have tried to understand the deflationist claim that truth is not a substantial notion as the claim that a satisfactory axiomatisation of truth should be conservative over the base theory.
     From: Volker Halbach (Axiomatic Theories of Truth [2011], 8)
Compositional Truth CT proves generalisations, so is preferred in discussions of deflationism [Halbach]
     Full Idea: Compositional Truth CT and its variants has desirable generalisations among its logical consequences, so they seem to have ousted purely disquotational theories such as TB in the discussion on deflationism.
     From: Volker Halbach (Axiomatic Theories of Truth [2011], 8)
Deflationists say truth merely serves to express infinite conjunctions [Halbach]
     Full Idea: According to many deflationists, truth serves merely the purpose of expressing infinite conjunctions.
     From: Volker Halbach (Axiomatic Theories of Truth (2005 ver) [2005], 1.3)
     A reaction: That is, it asserts sentences that are too numerous to express individually. It also seems, on a deflationist view, to serve for anaphoric reference to sentences, such as 'what she just said is true'.
Deflationary theories reject analysis of truth in terms of truth-conditions [Young,JO]
     Full Idea: Unlike deflationary theories, the coherence and correspondence theories both hold that truth is a property of propositions that can be analyzed in terms of the sorts of truth-conditions propositions have, and the relation propositions stand in to them.
     From: James O. Young (The Coherence Theory of Truth [2013], Intro)
     A reaction: This is presumably because deflationary theories reject the external relations of a proposition as a feature of its truth. This evidently leaves them in need of a theory of meaning, which may be fairly minimal. Horwich would be an example.