THE MEANING OF

TRUTH

SUSAN HAACK
<shaack@law.miami.edu>
[True] is a word we
all understand, but if
we try to explain it,
we can easily get
involved in a maze of
confusion. Frank
Ramsey
1. CORRESPONDENCE THEORIES

2. THE SEMANTIC THEORY

3. THE LACONICIST THEORY

4. CONSEQUENCES OF LACONICISM
 1. Correspondence Theories
some correspondence theories are
toothless, saying no more than: it is true
that p if and only if really, in fact, p

more serious correspondence theories

turn those emphatic adverbs into serious
metaphysics/philosophy of language
giving them real bite
 for example

the Logical Atomist correspondence

theories of Wittgenstein and Russell
 these require

heavy metaphysical apparatus of facts

(atomic & molecular, positive & negative)

propositions with a specific logical form

& a relation of structural isomorphism

(which proved very difficult to spell out)
then there was

J. L. Austins version,
with correspondence
as a coincidence of
demonstrative and
descriptive
conventions but
this applies only to
indexical statements
 many still find correspondence
attractive
but it has (I believe) never been spelled
out in a way

that gets beyond the toothless

correspondence idea, and

doesnt lead to excessive metaphysical

commitments, or restricted applicability
 2. The Semantic Theory

has been
enormously
influential, thanks in
part to the support of
Popper, Quine, and
Davidson but not
always well-
Alfred Tarski understood
 Tarski proposes

Formal Adequacy Conditions

the definition must not be circular

should not use semantic primitives
can be given only for a language that is
formally specifiable &
semantically open
 the last formal requirement

is imposed to avoid the Liar Paradox

This sentence is false

by requiring truth-in-O (the object

language) to be defined in a meta-
language
because of the Formal Adequacy
conditions, Tarski can define truth only for
syntactically characterizable formal
languages

& can define only true-in-L, not true

 more famous is

Tarskis Material Adequacy Condition

any acceptable definition of truth must

have as consequence all instances of

(T): S is true iff p

(where S is the name of the sentence on the right)

 the Material Adequacy Condition

is not a definition of truth (but a condition

on acceptable definitions)

& (according to Tarski) cannot simply be

generalized

so his definition takes an indirect route

 Tarski defines

satisfaction of atomic open formulae (a

relation to infinite sequences of objects) --
enumeratively

then satisfaction of molecular open

sentences -- recursively

& then truth of closed sentences:

satisfied by all infinite sequences
 misunderstandings

this is not, as Popper suggests, a version

of the correspondence theory Tarski
wants to articulate Aristotles Insight
WITHOUT relying on correspondence or
facts

nor is it a disquotationalist theory, as

Quine suggests if it were, Tarski could
simply drop his last 100 pages!
 for, according to Tarski

the quotation-mark name of an expression

is a new word, of which the contained
expression is not semantically a part

you cant quantify into quotation marks

(p) (p is true iff p) makes no sense; the

T-schema cant be generalized in this way
 ironically enough

this is the logical block view of quotation

-- which Quine himself once accepted!

when he wrote that a word in quotation

marks is not semantically a part of the
whole expression any more than rat is
of Socrates
 moreover

Tarskis is not, as Soames suggests, a

theory of the truth of propositions

propositions dont have syntactic structure

(the same proposition can be expressed
by sentences with different structures)

but Ts definition relies on structure of wffs

Tarskis approach has real limitations

it stratifies the truth-concept (treated not

as one concept, but many)

its application is limited to formally

specifiable & semantically open languages

which is why Tarski says truth cannot be

defined for natural languages
 Tarski himself is ambivalent

he says he doesnt claim to have captured

the real meaning of true he would be
willing to use the word frue instead!

and yet goes on to say BOTH that he

doesnt say the semantic theory is right,
AND that he cant imagine what it would
mean to say it is wrong (!!!)
 furthermore

the failure of the

Davidson Program
confirms that Tarski was
right in thinking his
methods apply to formal,
but not natural,
languages

Donald
Davidson
 not to mention the
failure of Poppers
theory of
verisimilitude, or the
casualness of his
assumption that
Tarskis theory
applies to the
consistent parts of
natural language
Sir Karl Popper
 I am inclined to conclude

that Tarskis work, though a very

impressive technical achievement

is not, in the end, fully satisfying

philosophically
 3. The Laconicist Theory
laconicist is a better name for what is
usually called the Redundancy Theory

[A] belief is true if it is a belief that p, and p.

. A belief that Smith is either a liar or a
fool is true if Smith is either a liar or a fool,
and not otherwise. Frank Ramsey
 Ramsey is well aware

that while it is true that can be eliminated

from (is redundant in), e.g., It is true that
Hannibal crossed the Alps

it cannot be eliminated form, e.g., Plato

said some true things and some false
things
 the new name

coined by Dr. Kiriake Xerohemona

derives from the English word laconic,

which means short, terse

& itself derives from the Greek word

Laconia, the name for the ancient city-
state, Sparta
to call something spartan (in English)
means that it is austere, simple
laconicism seems to capture the core
meaning of true

& to conform precisely to the Aristotelian

Insight
 still, as Ramsey is aware

the theory is incomplete, requiring

an account of propositional quantifiers

(which may not itself use the concept of
truth)

to explain, e.g.: Plato said some true

things -- (Ep) (Plato said that p, and p)
 &

an account of representation

& an understanding of reality

which Ramsey takes to be involved in

saying that this is the belief that p
[representation], and p [reality]
 on propositional quantifiers

neither an objectual nor a substitutional

account will do

because both involve the concept of truth,

explicitly or implicitly

the inference-ticket approach (suggested

by Arthur Prior, C. J. F. Williams, Mara-
Jos Frpolli) might work
 on reality

laconicism is entirely compatible with my

Innocent Realism (itself fairly laconic!)

according to which there is one real world

largely but not wholly independent of us

a real world that includes

natural things, events, etc.

human artifacts
social institutions, roles, and rules
mental states, processes, events
imaginative creations such as novels, plays,
cartoons, etc.
4. Consequences of Laconicism

that when we say that it is true that p, what

we say about p is the same, whatever
kind of proposition p is (scientific,
historical, literary, legal, etc.)

this is one way to put what I mean by

speaking of the unity of truth
 &

that truth is objective

i.e. (normally), whether or not it is true that

p does not depend on whether you, or I, or
anyone believes it is true that p

or on whether we agree that p, or know

that p, etc.
 &

that truth is not relative

for (just as there is no reference in the

account of truth to what anyone believes,
etc.), there is no relativization to culture,
community, theory, or even (as in Tarski)
language
 moreover

laconicism suggests a plausible

understanding of observations like:

a genuine inquirer seeks the truth

a scientific theory is successful (in

prediction, technology) because it is true
a genuine inquirer seeks the truth

means, not that there is a kind of Holy

Grail,The Truth, that every genuine
inquirer seeks

but that someone who is genuinely

inquiring into whether p wants to end up
believing that p if p, & that not-p if not-p
 e.g.

James Watson really wanted to discover

the truth about the structure of DNA

means: Watson wanted to end his

investigation believing that DNA is a
double-helical, backbone-out
macromolecule with like-with-unlike base
pairs iff DNA is a double-helical, ...,
macromolecule (etc.)
as, of course, it is,
and he did!
 Watson (L) &
Crick (R) with
their model of
DNA, 1952
a model
Watson
described as
too pretty not
to be true.
 again

this scientific theory works because it is

true

means: this theory works because it says

that p and (in fact!) p
 for example

why does the plane not burst at the

seams?

because it is built using the assumption

that metal m can withstand pressure p,
and this assumption is true

i.e.: because m can withstand pressure p

 furthermore

laconicism can readily explain why true

plays the pragmatic roles it does

e.g., the use of thats true to express

agreement is just a short way to say
yourself what the other person just said
Rorty suggests he is following Ramsey

when he identifies truth with here-and-now

agreement

but this is a big muddle

thats true often has the force of I agree

but (of course) we can agree that p when

p is not true

& (of course) we may not agree that p

when p is true

so it is true that p doesnt mean we

agree that p
laconicism can also explain the
concessive use of true

A says: The price of gold will probably

rise; B replies: True, but later it will fall

= yes, the price of gold will probably rise,

but after that it will fall
 next time, I will explore

the many different kinds of true proposition

(the plurality of truths)

specifically, how truths in science differ

from truths in history, in law, & in literature
 but for now, Id
like to hear what
you think