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1 year ago in Philosophy By Shraddha

What would a minimalist, stripped-down philosophical approach to the concept of "truth" look like?

I'm tired of the dense debates between correspondence, coherence, and pragmatic theories of truth. Is there a way to salvage a workable, minimalist notion of truth for everyday and philosophical discourse? Something like "to assert that 'P' is true is just to assert P" (the redundancy theory)? Or a deflationary approach that says "true" is merely a useful linguistic device for endorsement? What are the core commitments we cannot avoid, and what complexities can we legitimately shed?

 

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By Coren Answered 1 year ago

A minimalist approach is deflationary: it denies that truth is a substantive property or involves a deep relation like correspondence. The core idea is that the predicate 'is true' is a logical device for endorsement, generalization, or indirect reference. The simplest version is the redundancy theory: saying "It is true that snow is white" adds nothing to saying "Snow is white." A more sophisticated minimal theory (Horwich) holds that our entire understanding of truth is captured by the equivalence schema: 'The proposition that p is true iff p'. This avoids metaphysical commitments about facts, reality, or coherence. The unavoidable commitment is to the logical and expressive function of the truth predicate. It sheds complexities like defining "correspondence" or "ideal justification." Its main challenge is handling paradoxes and explaining truth's normative role in belief.

 

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