9 ideas
| 23295 | Truth cannot be reduced to anything simpler [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: We cannot hope to underpin the concept of truth with something more transparent or easier to grasp. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Folly of Trying to Define Truth [1999], p.21) | |
| A reaction: I suppose precise accounts of correspondence or coherence are offered as replacements for truth, but neither of those ever seem to be possible. I agree with accepting truth as a primitive. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 23298 | Neither Aristotle nor Tarski introduce the facts needed for a correspondence theory [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Neither Aristotle's formula nor Tarski's truth definitions are sympathetic to the correspondence theory, because they don't introduce entities like facts or states of affairs for sentences to correspond. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Folly of Trying to Define Truth [1999], p.25) | |
| A reaction: This seems convincing, although it is often claimed that both theories offer a sort of correspondence. |
| 10844 | The statement that it is raining perfectly fits the fact that it is raining [Strawson,P] |
| Full Idea: What could fit more perfectly the fact that it is raining than the statement that it is raining? | |
| From: Peter F. Strawson (Truth [1950], §2) |
| 23297 | The language to define truth needs a finite vocabulary, to make the definition finite [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: If the definition of the truth predicate is to be finite (Tarski insisted on this), the definition must take advantage of the fact that sentences, though potentially infinite in number, are constructed from a finite vocabulary. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Folly of Trying to Define Truth [1999], p.23) | |
| A reaction: Not sure whether this is in the object language or the meta-language, though I guess the former. |
| 10841 | The word 'true' always refers to a possible statement [Strawson,P] |
| Full Idea: It is of prime importance to distinguish the fact that the use of 'true' always glances backwards or forwards to the actual or envisaged making of a statement by someone. | |
| From: Peter F. Strawson (Truth [1950], §1) | |
| A reaction: 'The truth of this matter will never be known'. Strawson is largely right, but it is crazy for any philosopher to use the word 'always' if they can possibly avoid it. |
| 23296 | We can elucidate indefinable truth, but showing its relation to other concepts [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: We can still say revealing things about truth, by relating it to other concepts like belief, desire, cause and action. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Folly of Trying to Define Truth [1999], p.21) | |
| A reaction: The trickiest concept to link it to is meaning. I think Davidson's view points to the Axiomatic account of truth, which flourished soon after Davidson wrote this. We can give rules for the correct use of 'true'. |
| 23294 | It is common to doubt truth when discussing it, but totally accept it when discussing knowledge [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: You are following Plato's lead if you worry about the concept of truth when it is the focus of your attention, but you pretend you understand it when trying to cope with knowledge (or belief, memory, perception etc.). | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Folly of Trying to Define Truth [1999], p.20) | |
| A reaction: Nice to find someone pointing out this absurdity. He says Hume does the same with doubts about the external world, which he ignores when discussing other minds. Belief is holding true; only truths are actually remembered…. |