Truth: Its Nature, Criteria and Conditions

127 Pages·2012·0.81 MB·English

by  Haig Khatchadourian

Haig Khatchadourian
Truth: Its Nature, Criteria and Conditions
P h i l o s o p h i s c h e A n a l y s e
P h i l o s o p h i c a l A n a l y s i s

Herausgegeben von / Edited by

Herbert Hochberg • Rafael Hüntelmann • Christian Kanzian
Richard Schantz • Erwin Tegtmeier

Band 42 / Volume 42
Haig Khatchadourian

Truth:
Its Nature, Criteria and Conditions
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2011

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CONTENTS

Preface
Dedication
Acknowledgments

1 The Traditional Correspondence Theory 1

2 Modified Correspondence Theory of Truth 19

3 “Truth as Identity of Fact and Proposition” 39

4 “Truth as Appraisal” 45

5 Facts 57

6 “Emotive Theory of Truth” 67

7 N. Rescher: A Coherentist Theory of the
Criterion of Truth 67

8 Meaning of and Uses of ‘True’ and ‘False’ 77
9 Conditions of Cognitive & Conditions of 91
Performative Uses of Truth Statements

10 Appraisive/Evaluative Uses of ‘True’ and ‘False’ 99
Index 113
In memory of my Uncle Ohan,

Cousins Nazli and John
I

PREFACE

The book is a critical and constructive inquiry into a central topic in
theory of knowledge; viz. the nature, criteria and conditions of truth, as
these concepts apply to empirical statements or propositions. Part I is
primarily critical, while Part II is primarily constructive.
Part I critically examines a number of recent theories of the nature
of truth, beginning with the traditional correspondence theory of the
nature and criterion of truth, followed by a modified correspondence
theory by Alan R. White. White’s earlier theory, which conceives of truth
as appraisal. A.D. Woozley’s view that truth consists in the identity of
fact and proposition and Bartlett Savery’s emotive theory of truth, are
also critically examined. Since the concept of a fact plays is central in
these theories as well as in the rest of the book, a separate chapter is
devoted to that concept’s analysis. A critical discussion of the essentials
of Nicholas Rescher’s novel theory of a coherentist criterion of truth
concludes Part I.
The traditional correspondence theory1 as well as Woozley’s
theory and Alan White’s theories of the nature of truth assume that the
concept of truth2 or the meaning of ‘true’ (or ‘truth’) is definable, hence
propose what they believe is the concept’s correct definition. In contrast
to that, a central claim of the present book is that the concept is
indefinable, albeit for quite different reasons from Gottlob Frege’s. For

1 Together with the Neo-Idealist 19th and 20th century Coherence Theory of Truth,
which was the subject of my The Coherence Theory of Truth: A Critical Evaluation
(Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1961); reprinted by Wipf & Stock
Publishers, Inc. Eugene, Oregon, 2010.
2 That is also true of Rescher, in his appealing to what he believes is the
correspondence theory of the nature of truth.
II

unlike the present author, Frege’s view is based on his critique of the
traditional correspondence theory of truth.3
Although Part I is mainly critical, important positive insights,
including some that relate to the logical relations between truth and
various other important epistemological concepts, such as evidence and
justification, among others, are also reached. Analysis of these and other
important concepts is continued in the largely positive Part II of the book.
Thus Chapter 8, “Standard Conditions, Preconditions and
Presuppositions, and Performative & Constative Uses, of ‘True’ and
‘False’” begins with a critique of the “Logical Superfluity Theory of
Truth,” which claims that “It is true that p” means “It is a fact that p.”
The chapter then analyzes the meaning and uses of empirical truth-
sentences/statements, distinguishing various types of conditions for their
correct employment; viz. (a) the “normal or standard conditions,” as
distinguished from (b) the “logically necessary and sufficient conditions,”
for their employment. The chapter also considers (c) the
“presuppositions,” and (d) the “preconditions” of true and false
statements. Since one of the Chapter’s main claims is that empirical truth-
and false-statements have performative in addition to cognitive uses, the
conditions for their performative uses are considered against the
background of J. L. Austin’s discussion of performative utterances in
How To Do Things With Words and in “Performative Utterances.”
The exploration of various sorts of logical conditions of or relating
to empirical truth statements in Chapter 8 naturally leads to the
exploration, in Chapter 9, of (a) the conditions of the cognitive uses of
true statements, followed by (b) the conditions of the performative uses
of truth statements, ending with a brief discussion of John Searle’s
criticism of P. F. Strawson’s performative theory of truth.
Chapter 10, “Appraisive/Evaluative Uses of ‘True’ and ‘False,’”
explores an important additional dimension of the uses of ‘true’ and
‘false,’ namely their appraisive or evaluative function or uses. To clarify
these, the concepts of standards of appraisal/evaluation and ideal of
knowledge or truth are clarified and applied. A comparison with moral

3 In “Thoughts” (1918-19), Collected Papers on Mathematics, Logic, and
Philosophy, Brian McGinness, ed. ; Translated by Max Black et al (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell Publisher Ltd, 1984), pp. 351-372.
III

notions and works of art show that though ‘true’ and ‘false’ have an
appraisive/evaluative function, they are not prescriptive or value terms, in
contrast to “ought” sentences and even (implicitly) judgments of
goodness or badness. In sum, many people uphold standards of truth and
falsity, not just semantic and syntactic conventions/rules for the correct
applications of ‘true’ and ‘false’ statements. For them these
conventions/rules are transformed into standards insofar as they embrace
the “ideal of truth or knowledge.” Finally, in addition to the other jobs
‘true’ performs in statements of the form “p is true,” in some cases the
word has a “dynamic” or “persuasive” function. In these cases, by saying
“p is true,” the speaker performs a perlocutionary speech-act. But these
speech-acts do not require that the speaker labor under some feeling or
emotion towards “p,” or that “p is true” be intended to “express” this
feeling or emotion.