TY - JOUR
T1 - [Translation of] The new correspondence theory of truth without the concept of fact
AU - Chen, Bo
A2 - Vrhovski, Jan
N1 - Funding Information:
I am grateful to two anonymous referees of this journal for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Moreover, I wrote this article originally in Chinese. Dr. Jan Vrhovski helped me to translate it into English. I carefully checked his translation and did my own revisions. My American colleague at Wuhan University, Dr. Peter Finocchiaro, offered his help to polish and revise the English of this article at its final stage. I’m very appreciated to their generous help and support. Of course, I myself should be responsible for all potential errors and mistakes in this article. Furthermore, this research is supported by the 2021 Philosophy and Social Sciences Project of Guizhou Province, China, “Comparison between Western and Chinese Philosophies: Russell and Jin Yuelin” (No. 21GZGX19).
Funding Information:
I am grateful to two anonymous referees of this journal for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Moreover, I wrote this article originally in Chinese. Dr. Jan Vrhovski helped me to translate it into English. I carefully checked his translation and did my own revisions. My American colleague at Wuhan University, Dr. Peter Finocchiaro, offered his help to polish and revise the English of this article at its final stage. I’m very appreciated to their generous help and support. Of course, I myself should be responsible for all potential errors and mistakes in this article. Furthermore, this research is supported by the 2021 Philosophy and Social Sciences Project of Guizhou Province, China, “Comparison between Western and Chinese Philosophies: Russell and Jin Yuelin” (No. 21GZGX19).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Wiley Periodicals LLC.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Traditional correspondence theory of truth with the concept of fact encounters many serious difficulties, main one of which is that it is too difficult to explain clearly the concept of ‘fact’ and how propositions ‘correspond’ to facts. This does not mean that we should abandon the traditional correspondence theory of truth and turn to some other type theories of truth. In order to guarantee the objectivity of truth, any reasonable theory of truth must adhere to the core insight of the traditional correspondence theory: it is not something in our language, nor in our mind, but something in the external world, that make the propositions we use to describe the states of affairs in the world either true or false. It is entirely possible to formulate a new correspondence theory of truth without the concept of fact but still adhering to the core insights mentioned above of the traditional correspondence theory. New correspondence theory of truth has its own metaphysical and epistemological assumptions, and also its assumption in the philosophy of language. Because of the generativity of language, in defining the concept of truth, the new correspondence theory of truth must resort to Tarskian recursive procedure. First, it gives the semantic value of the components of a proposition, defines the truth of its atomic propositions, then gradually defines the truth of its more and more complex propositions and finally of the whole proposition. Coherence is the intrinsic element of truth. The concept of truth is by no means trivial and insignificant; on the contrary, it is very substantive. The pursuit of truth is our mission.
AB - Traditional correspondence theory of truth with the concept of fact encounters many serious difficulties, main one of which is that it is too difficult to explain clearly the concept of ‘fact’ and how propositions ‘correspond’ to facts. This does not mean that we should abandon the traditional correspondence theory of truth and turn to some other type theories of truth. In order to guarantee the objectivity of truth, any reasonable theory of truth must adhere to the core insight of the traditional correspondence theory: it is not something in our language, nor in our mind, but something in the external world, that make the propositions we use to describe the states of affairs in the world either true or false. It is entirely possible to formulate a new correspondence theory of truth without the concept of fact but still adhering to the core insights mentioned above of the traditional correspondence theory. New correspondence theory of truth has its own metaphysical and epistemological assumptions, and also its assumption in the philosophy of language. Because of the generativity of language, in defining the concept of truth, the new correspondence theory of truth must resort to Tarskian recursive procedure. First, it gives the semantic value of the components of a proposition, defines the truth of its atomic propositions, then gradually defines the truth of its more and more complex propositions and finally of the whole proposition. Coherence is the intrinsic element of truth. The concept of truth is by no means trivial and insignificant; on the contrary, it is very substantive. The pursuit of truth is our mission.
UR - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14679191
U2 - 10.1111/phil.12344
DO - 10.1111/phil.12344
M3 - Article
SN - 1467-9191
VL - 54
SP - 261
EP - 286
JO - The Philosophical Forum
JF - The Philosophical Forum
IS - 4
ER -