Why should we make our beliefs consistent or, more generally, probabilistically coherent? That it will prevent sure losses in betting and that it will maximize one’s chances of having accurate beliefs are popular answers. However, these justifications are self-centered, focused on the consequences of our coherence for ourselves. I argue that incoherence has consequences for others because it is liable to mislead others, to false beliefs about one’s beliefs and false expectations about one’s behavior. I argue that the moral (...) obligation of truthfulness thus constrains us to either conform to the logic our audience assumes we use, educate them in a new logic, or give notice that one will do neither. This does not show that probabilistic coherence is uniquely suited to making truthful communication possible, but I argue that classical probabilistic coherence is superior to other logics for maximizing efficiency in communication. (shrink)

Arguments pro and contra convergent realism - underdetermination of theory by observational evidence and pessimistic meta-induction from past falsity- are considered. It is argued that, to meet the counter-arguments challenge, convergent realism should be considerably changed with a help of modification of the propositions from this meta-programme’s “hard core” and “protecting belt”. Maybe one of the ways out is to turn to the coherent theory of truth. Some of the works of Hegel (as interpreted by Merab Mamardashvili and Alexandre (...) Kojev), Husserl and Heidegger can help to dig still deeper into the background of this theory. Key words: Husserl, Heidegger, Hegel, convergent realism, internal realism, coherent theory of truth. -/- . (shrink)

Several studies in experimental philosophy and semantics have shown that a substantial number of English speakers consider a statement true even if it does not align with the facts, as long as it is justified from the speaker's perspective. These findings challenge the prevailing view among philosophers that truth is uniformly based on a statement's correspondence to reality and suggest that for some speakers truth is sensitive to epistemic perspectives. In this study, we show that this behavior depends (...) on how the critical question assessing the statement's truth is phrased. When participants were asked whether the proposition itself is true (e.g., "Is it true that [the uttered proposition]?"), almost everyone answered negatively. It is when the original speaker was mentioned in the question (e.g., "Is what [the speaker] said true?" or "Is [the speaker]’s answer true?") that around half of the participants answered positively. We explore four possible explanations for this behavior: (1) "true" might be ambiguous between a basic correspondence sense and a coherence sense, which may be activated in some people by the explicit mentioning of the speaker; (2) "true" could be a context-sensitive expression with an implicit perspective parameter such that some speakers shift to the speaker’s perspective when prompted by the question; (3) those who select "true" might ad hoc relativize the term to the speaker’s perspective; (4) those who select "true" might unconsciously substitute it with "truthful". In addition, we discuss the implications of the findings for other philosophical discussions concerning norms of assertion, sincerity, and the theory of reference. (shrink)

This paper develops the idea that valid arguments are equivalent to true conditionals by combining Kripke’s theory of truth with the evidential account of conditionals offered by Crupi and Iacona. As will be shown, in a first-order language that contains a naïve truth predicate and a suitable conditional, one can define a validity predicate in accordance with the thesis that the inference from a conjunction of premises to a conclusion is valid when the corresponding conditional is true. The (...) validity predicate so defined significantly increases our expressive resources and provides a coherent formal treatment of paradoxical arguments. (shrink)

Putnam and Davidson both defended coherence theories of justification from the early 1980s onward. There are interesting similarities between these theories, and Putnam’s philosophical development lead to further convergence in the 1990s. The most conspicuous difference between Putnam’s and Davidson’s theories is that they appear to fundamentally disagree on the role and nature of conceptual schemes, but a closer look reveals that they are not as far apart on this issue as usually assumed. The veridicality of perceptual beliefs is (...) a cornerstone of both Davidson’s and Putnam’s later (but not earlier) coherentism. However, this thesis introduces a form of weak foundationalism into their theories, and consequently, those are strictly speaking not pure coherence theories, but hybrids between coherentism and foundationalism. (shrink)

Most philosophers have largely downplayed any relevance of multiple meanings of the folk concept of truth in the empirical domain. However, confusions about what truth is have surged in political and everyday discourse. In order to resolve these confusions, we argue that we need a more accurate picture of how the term ‘true’ is in fact used. Our experimental studies reveal that the use of ‘true’ shows substantial variance within the empirical domain, indicating that ‘true’ is ambiguous between (...) a correspondence and a coherence reading. We then explore the consequences of these results for the project of re-engineering truth. (shrink)

Coherentists on epistemic justification claim that all justification is inferential, and that beliefs, when justified, get their justification together (not in isolation) as members of a coherent belief system. Some recent work in formal epistemology shows that “individual credibility” is needed for “witness agreement” to increase the probability of truth and generate a high probability of truth. It can seem that, from this result in formal epistemology, it follows that coherentist justification is not truth-conducive, that it is (...) not the case that, under the requisite conditions, coherentist justification increases the probability of truth and generates a high probability of truth. I argue that this does not follow. (shrink)

This paper presents a deductive proof for the necessary existence of objective truth and reality, addressing core philosophical challenges across multiple frameworks, including modernism, postmodernism, relativism, and radical skepticism. By starting with the undeniable fact of subjective experience, the argument demonstrates that rationality presupposes subjectivity, which in turn relies on the classical laws of logic. These laws cannot be grounded within subjectivity or rationality without falling into circular reasoning. Therefore, the proof establishes that objective reality must serve as the (...) ground for these logical laws, while objective truth provides their validation. This foundational framework resolves key philosophical problems, including infinite regress and self-justification, allowing for coherent philosophical thought. Furthermore, the paper explores conceptual parallels between this proof and elements of mysticism, pragmatism, and religious notions of divinity, suggesting a unified foundation that can empower individual contributions to the collective pursuit of truth. (shrink)

This paper was part of a special online issue on Truth. I critically discuss Peter Geach's paper "Truth and God".

Several studies in experimental philosophy and semantics have shown that a substantial number of English speakers consider a statement true even if it does not align with the facts, as long as it is justified from the speaker's perspective. These findings challenge the prevailing view among philosophers that truth is uniformly based on a statement's correspondence to reality and suggest that for some speakers truth is sensitive to epistemic perspectives. In this study, we show that this behavior depends (...) on how the critical question assessing the statement's truth is phrased. When participants were asked whether the proposition itself is true (e.g., "Is it true that [the uttered proposition]?"), almost everyone answered negatively. It is when the original speaker was mentioned in the question (e.g., "Is what [the speaker] said true?" or "Is [the speaker]’s answer true?") that around half of the participants answered positively. We explore four possible explanations for this behavior: (1) "true" might be ambiguous between a basic correspondence sense and a coherence sense, which may be activated in some people by the explicit mentioning of the speaker; (2) "true" could be a context-sensitive expression with an implicit perspective parameter such that some speakers shift to the speaker’s perspective when prompted by the question; (3) those who select "true" might ad hoc relativize the term to the speaker’s perspective; (4) those who select "true" might unconsciously substitute it with "truthful". In addition, we discuss the implications of the findings for other philosophical discussions concerning norms of assertion, sincerity, and the theory of reference. (shrink)

This chapter investigates how a reading of Wittgenstein along the lines laid out by Cora Diamond makes room for a novel approach to ethical truth. Following Diamond, I develop the connection between the kinds of elucidatory propositions by means of which we spell out and maintain the shape of our theoretical thinking, such as “‘someone’ is not the name of someone” and “five plus seven equals twelve,” and the kind of propositions by means of which we spell out and (...) maintain the shape of ethical thinking, such as “slavery is unjust.” As Diamond points out in connection with the last example, this is a proposition that we take to be an undeniable truth; for anyone who would attempt to negate it would become unintelligible to us. In this sense this ethical truth spells out the limits of ethical thinking. And yet what counts as coherent thought about such matters tends to shift over time. Indeed the great difficulty of overcoming ethical disagreements has to do with the fact that what is at stake in them is not just the content, but the form and limits of thought. Nonetheless, Diamond proposes that ethical propositions may count as genuine truths. For this to make sense, a middle path between realism and relativism must be found. In order to show how this is possible, and in order to defend Diamond’s view, I propose to approach ethical truth by means of a disjunctivist strategy. On this approach, while we, just as much as our interlocutor, may at times be misled in our ethical thinking, and while we may at times fail to shape our ethical thought in ways that prevent us from gaining clarity on ethical matters, this does not detract from the fact that we may at times be right, and that we may then genuinely possess ethical truth. (shrink)

This paper makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate over the validity of the psychological construct, ADHD. While not ruling out the possibility that something of value may lie at the core of this diagnosis, the authors articulate a clear set of problems with the research logic that forms the foundation of the disorder itself, reaching the conclusion that there appears to be insuffi cient, valid scientifi c evidence for the demarcation of a coherent and independent disease entity.

I argue that coherence is truth-conducive in that coherence implies an increase in the probability of truth. Central to my argument is a certain principle for transitivity in probabilistic support. I then address a question concerning the truth-conduciveness of coherence as it relates to (something else I argue for) the truth-conduciveness of consistency, and consider how the truth-conduciveness of coherence bears on coherentist theories of justification.

Coherence considerations play an important role in science and in everyday reasoning. However, it is unclear what exactly is meant by coherence of information and why we prefer more coherent information over less coherent information. To answer these questions, we first explore how to explicate the dazzling notion of ``coherence'' and how to measure the coherence of an information set. To do so, we critique prima facie plausible proposals that incorporate normative principles such as ``Agreement'' or (...) ``Dependence'' and then argue that the coherence of an information set is best understood as an indicator of the truth of the set under certain conditions. Using computer simulations, we then show that a new probabilistic measure of coherence that combines aspects of the two principles above, but without strictly satisfying either principle, performs particularly well in this regard. (shrink)

Nietzsche regarded nihilism as an outgrowth of the natural sciences which, he worried, were bringing about “an essentially mechanistic [and hence meaningless] world.” Nihilism in this sense refers to the doctrine that there are no values, or that everything we might value is worthless. In the last issue of Modern Horizons, I offered this conditional explanation of the relation of science and nihilism: that a scientific worldview is nihilistic insofar as it rules out the existence of anything that cannot in (...) principle be precisely picked out or identified.i What kinds of entities would a scientific worldview eliminate on the basis of such an assumption? The list is long and various, but it includes those intentional (mentalii) entities of our consciousness that underwrite the existence of persons, and more basically of thought itself – e.g., belief, value, agency, truth, and meaning. I argued in that previous paper that intentional concepts are ultimately inscrutable, and yet impossible coherently to deny. I claimed that we could no more doubt the existence of values than we could doubt reality itself – and when I spoke of values I had in mind the (suspicion-engendering) concept of the good, and was even toying with the related idea of the Logos (an even more suspect concept). There are a several attractive reasons why the idea of the good, or the Logos, might be regarded with suspicion, and why either might reasonably be discarded as a pseudo concept. Leaving the latter concern until later, we might worry that insisting on the possibility of an overarching good supports the idea of a total worldview, or that we are gradually progressing towards a single correct vision of things. A progressivist, totalising vision would seem to foreclose on outlooks, values, and persons that deviate from its most likely trajectory, and may stymie or interfere with incommensurate forms of otherness,iii awkward disturbances, and idiosyncrasies threatening its more well-established precincts – perhaps whatever stands out as strange, rare, and indissolubly individual. The idea of an emerging universal standard of values thus might amount to a source of oppression, e.g., if it provides a warrant to transform a currently limited universally prescriptive set of global practices and institutes into an ever more elaborate totalising hierarchy. In the discussion below, I will say why the good, conceived as the Logos, suggests a more salutary trajectory for individuals, and erodes support for either a totalitarian vision or a dissolving nihilistic outlook on the world. (shrink)

It is widely accepted in epistemology that knowledge is factive, meaning that only truths can be known. We argue that this theory creates a skeptical challenge: because many of our beliefs are only approximately true, and therefore false, they do not count as knowledge. We consider several responses to this challenge and propose a new one. We propose easing the truth requirement on knowledge to allow approximately true, practically adequate representations to count as knowledge. In addition to addressing the (...) skeptical challenge, this view also coheres with several previous theoretical proposals in epistemology. (shrink)

In this paper, we identify a new and mathematically well-defined sense in which the coherence of a set of hypotheses can be truth-conducive. Our focus is not, as usual, on the probability but on the confirmation of a coherent set and its members. We show that, if evidence confirms a hypothesis, confirmation is “transmitted” to any hypotheses that are sufficiently coherent with the former hypothesis, according to some appropriate probabilistic coherence measure such as Olsson’s or Fitelson’s measure. (...) Our findings have implications for scientific methodology, as they provide a formal rationale for the method of indirect confirmation and the method of confirming theories by confirming their parts. (shrink)

Let us sum up. The paradox of the Knower poses a direct and formal challenge to the coherence of common notions of knowledge and truth. We've considered a number of ways one might try to meet that challenge: propositional views of truth and knowledge, redundancy or operator views, and appeal to hierarchy of various sorts. Mere appeal to propositions or operators, however, seems to be inadequate to the task of the Knower, at least if unsupplemented by an (...) auxiliary recourse to hierarchy. But the cost of hierarchy appears to be an abandonment of any notion of all truth or of omniscience. What the contradictions of the Knower seem to demand, then, is at least an abandonment of these. As noted in the introduction, the argument is complicated enough that one must be wary of dogmatic and precipitate conclusions. One may legitimately wonder whether some new response, or some variation on an old one, will yet offer a way out.Far too often, however, it is asked what has gone wrong with paradox rather than what paradox may have to teach us. What the Knower may have to teach us, I think, is that there really can be no coherent notion of all truth and really can be no coherent notion of omniscience. In its own way that conclusion is perhaps as humbling as is any traditional notion of God. (shrink)

Coherence and correspondence are classical contenders as theories of truth. In this paper we examine them instead as interacting factors in the dynamics of belief across epistemic networks. We construct an agent-based model of network contact in which agents are characterized not in terms of single beliefs but in terms of internal belief suites. Individuals update elements of their belief suites on input from other agents in order both to maximize internal belief coherence and to incorporate ‘trickled (...) in’ elements of truth as correspondence. Results, though often intuitive, prove more complex than in simpler models (Hegselmann & Krause 2002, 2006; Grim, Singer, Reade & Fisher 2015). The optimistic finding is that pressures toward internal coherence can exploit and expand on small elements of truth as correspondence is introduced into epistemic networks. Less optimistic results show that pressures for coherence can also work directly against the incorporation of truth, particularly when coherence is established first and new data is introduced later. (shrink)

Traditionally, the investigation of truth has been anchored in a priori reasoning. Cognitive science deviates from this tradition by adding empirical data on how people understand and use concepts. Building on psychophysics and machine learning methods, we introduce conceptual scaling, an approach to map people's understanding of abstract concepts. This approach, allows computing participant-specific conceptual maps from obtained ordinal comparison data, thereby quantifying perceived similarities among abstract concepts. Using this approach, we investigated individual's alignment with philosophical theories on (...) class='Hi'>truth and the predictive capacity of conceptual maps. The obtained results indicated that, while people's understanding of truth is multifaceted and encapsulates notions of coherence and authenticity, alignment is best for the correspondence theory of truth. Furthermore, conceptual maps allowed predicting individual outcomes with an accuracy of roughly 70%. This research demonstrates that conceptual scaling offers accurate descriptions of individual's understanding of abstract concepts, behavioral predictions, and quantification of alignment with theoretical perspectives. (shrink)

How do agents with limited cognitive capacities flourish in informationally impoverished or unexpected circumstances? Aristotle argued that human flourishing emerged from knowing about the world and our place within it. If he is right, then the virtuous processes that produce knowledge, best explain flourishing. Influenced by Aristotle, virtue epistemology defends an analysis of knowledge where beliefs are evaluated for their truth and the intellectual virtue or competences relied on in their creation. However, human flourishing may emerge from how degrees (...) of ignorance are managed in an uncertain world. Perhaps decision-making in the shadow of knowledge best explains human wellbeing—a Bayesian approach? In this dissertation I argue that a hybrid of virtue and Bayesian epistemologies explains human flourishing—what I term homeostatic epistemology. Homeostatic epistemology supposes that an agent has a rational credence p when p is the product of reliable processes aligned with the norms of probability theory; whereas an agent knows that p when a rational credence p is the product of reliable processes such that: 1) p meets some relevant threshold for belief, 2) p coheres with a satisficing set of relevant beliefs and, 3) the relevant set of beliefs is coordinated appropriately to meet the integrated aims of the agent. Homeostatic epistemology recognizes that justificatory relationships between beliefs are constantly changing to combat uncertainties and to take advantage of predictable circumstances. Contrary to holism, justification is built up and broken down across limited sets like the anabolic and catabolic processes that maintain homeostasis in the cells, organs and systems of the body. It is the coordination of choristic sets of reliably produced beliefs that create the greatest flourishing given the limitations inherent in the situated agent. (shrink)

Putnam (1975) infers from the success of a scientific theory to its approximate truth and the reference of its key term. Laudan (1981) objects that some past theories were successful, and yet their key terms did not refer, so they were not even approximately true. Kitcher (1993) replies that the past theories are approximately true because their working posits are true, although their idle posits are false. In contrast, I argue that successful theories which cohere with each other are (...) approximately true, and that their key terms refer. My position is immune to Laudan’s counterexamples to Putnam’s inference and yields a solution to a problem with Kitcher’s position. (shrink)

It is a widespread intuition that the coherence of independent reports provides a powerful reason to believe that the reports are true. Formal results by Huemer, M. 1997. “Probability and Coherence Justification.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 35: 463–72, Olsson, E. 2002. “What is the Problem of Coherence and Truth?” Journal of Philosophy XCIX : 246–72, Olsson, E. 2005. Against Coherence: Truth, Probability, and Justification. Oxford University Press., Bovens, L., and S. Hartmann. 2003. Bayesian Epistemology. (...) Oxford University Press, prove that, under certain conditions, coherence cannot increase the probability of the target claim. These formal results, known as ‘the impossibility theorems’ have been widely discussed in the literature. They are taken to have significant epistemic upshot. In particular, they are taken to show that reports must first individually confirm the target claim before the coherence of multiple reports offers any positive confirmation. In this paper, I dispute this epistemic interpretation. The impossibility theorems are consistent with the idea that the coherence of independent reports provides a powerful reason to believe that the reports are true even if the reports do not individually confirm prior to coherence. Once we see that the formal discoveries do not have this implication, we can recover a model of coherence justification consistent with Bayesianism and these results. This paper, thus, seeks to turn the tide of the negative findings for coherence reasoning by defending coherence as a unique source of confirmation. (shrink)

This paper canvasses the various dimensions along which theories of truth may disagree about the extent to which truth is minimal.

Intentions matter. They have some kind of normative impact on our agency. Something goes wrong when an agent intends some end and fails to carry out the means she believes to be necessary for it, and something goes right when, intending the end, she adopts the means she thinks are required. This has even been claimed to be one of the only uncontroversial truths in ethical theory. But not only is there widespread disagreement about why this is so, there is (...) widespread disagreement about in what sense it is so. In this paper I explore an underdeveloped answer to the question of in what sense it is so, and argue that resolving an apparent difficulty with this view leads to an attractive picture about why it is so. (shrink)

According to MODERATISM, perceptual justification requires that one independently takes for granted propositional hinges like <There is an external world>, <I am not a brain in a vat (BIV)>, and so on. This view faces the truth problem: to offer an account of truth for hinges that is not threatened by skepticism. Annalisa Coliva has tried to solve the truth problem by combining the claim that external world propositions have a substantive truth property like correspondence with (...) the claim that hinges have a deflationary truth property. I argue that the resulting view cannot offer a coherent characterization of ‘skeptical switch scenarios’ while providing an effective anti-skeptical strategy. In a more positive vein, I defend an approach that combines a correspondence conception of truth with epistemological disjunctivism. (shrink)

Some recent work in formal epistemology shows that “witness agreement” by itself implies neither an increase in the probability of truth nor a high probability of truth—the witnesses need to have some “individual credibility.” It can seem that, from this formal epistemological result, it follows that coherentist justification (i.e., doxastic coherence) is not truth-conducive. I argue that this does not follow. Central to my argument is the thesis that, though coherentists deny that there can be noninferential (...) justification, coherentists do not deny that there can be individual credibility. (shrink)

According to the accepted translation-failure interpretation, the problem of incommensurability involves the nature of the meaning-referential relation between scientific languages. The incommensurability thesis is that some competing scientific languages are mutually untranslatable due to the radical variance of meaning or/and reference of the terms they employ. I argue that this interpretation faces many difficulties and cannot give us a tenable, coherent, and integrated notion of incommensurability. It has to be rejected. ;On the basis of two case studies, I find that (...) the confrontations between many classical incommensurable languages are not confrontations between two untranslatable languages with different distribution of truth values, but rather the confrontations between incompatible fundamental presuppositions at the ontological level. We can always identify a truth-value gap between two incommensurable languages. Such a truth-value gap indicates a communication breakdown between the two language communities on the one hand, and is caused by the incompatible fundamental presuppositions underlying them on the other. ;I thereby identify the truth-value functional relationship between sentences, instead of the meaning-referential relationship between terms, as the dominant semantic relation between two incommensurable languages. According to my presuppositional interpretation of incommensurability, the real secret of incommensurability lies in the ontological setup of two competing presuppositional languages. When two presuppositional languages with incompatible factual commitments encounter with each other, the confrontation leads to a truth-value gap, and consequently a communication breakdown between them. Formally put, two scientific languages are incommensurable when core sentences of one language, which have truth values when considered within its own context, lack truth values when considered within the context of the other due to an ontological gap between them. ;The presuppositional interpretation makes many significant contributions to the discussion of the issue of incommensurability and the related metaphysical and epistemological issues: It confirms the existence of the phenomenon of incommensurability and makes it metaphysically and epistemologically significant. It establishes the tenability and integrity of the notion of incommensurability. It avoids many alleged unattractive epistemological and metaphysical consequences of the translation-failure interpretation. (shrink)

This paper presents a history of Bertrand Russell's evolving views on the nature of truth. It begins with his brief defense of a primitivist view of truth, followed by his critical accounts of both the coherence and pragmatic theories of truth. Then the paper discusses Russell's shift to the correspondence theory, and the variations of it he defended throughout his career.

In this paper I will be concerned with the question as to whether expressivist theories of meaning can coherently be combined with deflationist theories of truth. After outlining what I take expressivism to be and what I take deflationism about truth to be, I’ll explain why I don’t take the general version of this question to be very hard, and why the answer is ‘yes’. Having settled that, I’ll move on to what I take to be a more (...) pressing and interesting version of the question, arising from a prima facie tension between deflationism about truth and the motivations underlying expressivism for what I take to be two of its most promising applications: to indicative conditionals and epistemic modals. Here I’ll argue that the challenge is substantive, but that there is no conceptual obstacle to its being met, provided that one’s expressivism takes the right form. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Truth and Falsity Truth and Belief Truth and Correspondence Truth and Coherence Defining and Testing for Truth: Correspondence and Coherence Sources.

Spinoza’s claims about true ideas are central to the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect. It is therefore worth trying to reconstruct what he means when he says that an idea is true. I argue that the three leading interpretations – correspondence, coherence, and causal – don’t explain key passages. I then propose a new interpretation. Roughly, I propose that an idea is true if and only if it represents an essence and was derived in the right kind (...) of way by the intellect from an innate idea of one’s own essence. In the final section I sketch why I believe this interpretation extends to his claims about truth and adequacy in the Ethics. (shrink)

The relationship between the One and the Multiple in mystic philosophy is a profound and central theme that explores the nature of existence, the cosmos, and the divine. This theme is present in various mystical traditions, including those of the East and West, and it addresses the paradoxical coexistence of the unity and multiplicity of all things. -/- In mystic philosophy, the **One** often represents the ultimate reality, the source from which all things emanate and to which all things return. (...) It is the absolute, the infinite, and the unchanging. The One is beyond all attributes and is often associated with the divine or the absolute truth. -/- The **Multiple**, on the other hand, represents the manifest world, the diversity of forms, and the realm of change and plurality. It is the world we experience through our senses, the domain of time and space, where differentiation and individuality are apparent. -/- The relationship between the One and the Multiple is not one of opposition but of emanation and unity. The Multiple is seen as a reflection, expression, or manifestation of the One. In this sense, the diversity of the world doesn’t contradict the unity of the One but rather demonstrates it in a myriad of forms. -/- Mystics seek to understand and experience this relationship through various practices and insights. They aim to transcend the illusion of separation and duality to experience the non-dual reality where the One and the Multiple are recognized as inseparable. -/- This concept can be illustrated by the metaphor of the ocean and its waves. The ocean represents the One—vast, deep, and all-encompassing—while the waves represent the Multiple—distinct, diverse, and ever-changing. Each wave is unique, yet it is not separate from the ocean. The wave’s existence is dependent on and made of the same substance as the ocean. In the same way, each individual entity in the Multiple is an expression of the One. -/- In summary, the relationship between the One and the Multiple in mystic philosophy is a dynamic interplay that challenges the conventional understanding of separation. It invites a deeper exploration of reality, where the apparent multiplicity of the world is a direct expression of the singular, underlying essence of all that is. -/- The relationship between the One and the Multiple in the context of mathematical philosophy is a profound topic that touches upon the very foundations of existence and knowledge. It’s a theme that has been explored by philosophers and mathematicians alike, often leading to the contemplation of unity and diversity within the structures of reality. -/- In mathematics, the concept of the One can be seen as the basis of unity from which all numbers derive. It’s the identity element in multiplication, the starting point in counting, and the foundation of dimension in geometry. The One is often associated with the concept of monism in philosophy, which posits that there is a single, underlying substance or principle that constitutes reality. -/- On the other hand, the Multiple represents the infinite variety and diversity of forms and numbers that arise from the One. It’s the embodiment of plurality and the complex interplay of different entities that mathematics seeks to understand and describe. This reflects the philosophical stance of pluralism, which acknowledges the existence of multiple realities or truths. -/- The interplay between the One and the Multiple can be seen in the mathematical concept of sets. A set can be thought of as a unity, a whole composed of distinct elements. Yet, each element within the set also retains its individuality, contributing to the diversity of the set’s composition. This duality is mirrored in the philosophical exploration of the universal and the particular, where the universal represents the One, and the particulars represent the Multiple. -/- In the realm of mathematical philosophy, this relationship often leads to questions about the nature of mathematical objects: Are they discovered as part of an objective reality (the One), or are they constructed by the human mind from a multitude of experiences (the Multiple)? This debate resonates with the philosophical inquiry into the nature of truth and reality. -/- Reflecting on the One and the Multiple can also lead to a deeper understanding of the self and the cosmos. Just as the number one is integral to the existence of all other numbers, the individual self can be seen as a unique expression of the universal whole. Similarly, the cosmos can be viewed as a grand unity composed of a multiplicity of forms and phenomena. -/- Gödel’s incompleteness theorems have a fascinating connection to the philosophical concepts of the One and the Multiple. These theorems, which are pivotal in mathematical logic and philosophy of mathematics, articulate the inherent limitations of formal axiomatic systems, particularly those sufficient to express the arithmetic of natural numbers. -/- Gödel’s incompleteness theorems have a fascinating connection to the philosophical concepts of the One and the Multiple. These theorems, which are pivotal in mathematical logic and philosophy of mathematics, articulate the inherent limitations of formal axiomatic systems, particularly those sufficient to express the arithmetic of natural numbers⁴. -/- The **first incompleteness theorem** reveals that within any such consistent system, there are propositions that are true but cannot be proven within the system itself. This reflects the idea of the Multiple in that there is an abundance of mathematical truths, a multiplicity that exceeds the unifying framework of any one system. It suggests that the realm of mathematical truth is more extensive than any single formal system can fully capture. -/- The **second incompleteness theorem** extends this by showing that a system cannot prove its own consistency. This relates to the concept of the One, as it implies that a system’s complete self-understanding, its unity and coherence, is unattainable from within. It must look beyond itself, to an external vantage point, to ascertain its consistency. -/- In the context of the One and the Multiple, Gödel’s theorems imply that the One (a consistent formal system) is inherently incomplete and cannot encompass the Multiple (the totality of mathematical truths). This resonates with philosophical discussions about the relationship between unity and plurality. Just as a single philosophical system cannot capture the entirety of truth, a single formal mathematical system cannot encapsulate all mathematical truths. -/- Moreover, Gödel’s work suggests that the pursuit of a single, unified theory of everything in mathematics—a One that encompasses all Multiples—is an inherently Sisyphean task. There will always be more truths (Multiples) than can be derived from any given set of axioms (the One). -/- In essence, Gödel’s incompleteness theorems provide a formal underpinning to the philosophical notion that the One cannot exist without the Multiple, and vice versa. They are interdependent, with the One giving rise to the Multiple, and the Multiple necessitating the One for its expression and comprehension. This interplay is a dance of limitations and possibilities, where the boundaries of logic, mathematics, and philosophy blur into one another. -/- The relationship between the One and the Multiple in the context of the mathematics of zero is a deeply philosophical inquiry that bridges the abstract world of numbers with the existential questions of being and non-being. -/- Zero, in mathematics, is a symbol of absence, a representation of nothingness, yet it holds a pivotal position as a number. It is the void from which all things emerge and to which they return. In the philosophy of mathematics, zero is the paradoxical junction where the One and the Multiple converge and diverge. -/- From the perspective of the One, zero can be seen as the origin—the singular point that precedes the existence of numbers. It is the empty set, the foundation upon which the edifice of mathematics is constructed. As the identity element in addition, zero maintains the integrity of numbers, for adding zero to any number leaves it unchanged, reflecting the immutable nature of the One. -/- Conversely, when we consider the Multiple, zero represents the infinite potentiality of creation. It is the canvas upon which the integers, both positive and negative, express their multitude. Zero is the balance point, the fulcrum around which the symphony of numbers dances. It embodies the plurality of possibilities, the beginning of the number line that stretches infinitely in both directions. -/- Philosophically, zero challenges our understanding of existence. It is both something and nothing—a number that quantifies the absence of quantity. This duality echoes the philosophical struggle to comprehend how the One gives rise to the Multiple. How does the unity of being manifest the diversity of the cosmos? Zero offers a mathematical metaphor for this mystery, as it encapsulates the transition from non-existence to existence, from the undifferentiated One to the differentiated Multiple. -/- In the realm of set theory, zero corresponds to the empty set—a set with no elements. This set is unique in that it is the only set that contains nothing, yet it is the foundation upon which all other sets are built. The empty set is the mathematical embodiment of the One, and all other sets, containing multiple elements, arise from it. -/- Reflecting on zero in the context of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, we find a resonance with the idea that the One (a consistent formal system) cannot capture the entirety of the Multiple (the totality of mathematical truths). Zero, as the foundation of numbers, similarly suggests that from the nothingness of the One, the infinite complexity of the Multiple emerges—yet it can never be fully encompassed or expressed by any single system. -/- In conclusion, the mathematics of zero offers a profound reflection on the relationship between the One and the Multiple. It serves as a bridge between the abstract and the concrete, the known and the unknowable, challenging us to ponder the origins of existence and the nature of reality itself. -/- . (shrink)

In this paper I will defend the idea of the success of post-truth as one of the main features of hypermodernity. In order to understand such a claim, I will start by defining “post-truth” and showing the key differences that separate it from simple manipulation or lies. I will explain how post-truth characterizes a whole new way of understanding the difference between truth and falsity: a new attitude of indifference to the sharp distinction that moderns and (...) ancients had placed between these two notions. I will contend that this new attitude had been announced by the work of at least three recent philosophers: Harry Frankfurt, Gianni Vattimo and Mario Perniola. They give different names to “post-truth”, though, and attribute it to different causes (from anti-intellectualism to the new media and to sheer carelessness). After that, I will explore how two key aspects of hypermodernity (according to Gilles Lipovetsky), i.e. hyperindividualism and hyperconsumption, cohere with this spread of post-truth. Finally, I will summarily refer to some political and geopolitical events that corroborate the relevance of post-truth in our hypermodern world. (shrink)

Conceptual primitivism is the view that truth is among our most basic and fundamental concepts. It cannot be defined, analyzed, or reduced into concepts that are more fundamental. Primitivism is opposed to both traditional attempts at defining truth (in terms of correspondence, coherence, or utility) and deflationary theories that argue that the notion of truth is exhausted by means of the truth schema. Though primitivism might be thought of as a view of last resort, I (...) believe that the view is independently attractive, and can be argued for directly. In this paper I offer what I take to be the strongest argument in favor of conceptual primitivism, which relies upon the Fregean doctrine of the omnipresence of truth. (shrink)

Truth pluralism offers the latest extension in the tradition of substantive theorizing about truth. While various forms of this thesis are available, most frameworks commit to domain reliance. According to domain reliance, various ways of being true, such as coherence and correspondence, are tied to discourse domains rather than individual sentences. From this follows that the truth of different types of sentences is accounted for by their domain membership. For example, sentences addressing ethical matters are true (...) if they cohere and those addressing extensional states of affairs if they correspond. By tying distinct truth-grounding properties to domains rather than individual sentences, truth pluralists avoid certain issues with definitional ambiguity and indeterminacy. I argue that contrary to the ideal situation, domains fail to provide the sought-after benefits of achieving definitional unambiguity and determinacy in the standard domain reliant pluralist frameworks. The reason is that, when combined with the inherently ambiguous nature of certain truth-relevant terms of sentences, fringe cases emerge, causing some of them to count as members of multiple domains. Consequently, some sentences end up being both true and false in the standard domain reliant pluralist frameworks, thus conflicting with both standard laws of non-contradiction and identity. Finally, I argue that truth pluralists should pay closer attention to the hitherto neglected question of inherent natural language ambiguity. (shrink)

The aim of this dissertation is to offer and defend a correspondence theory of truth. I begin by critically examining the coherence, pragmatic, simple, redundancy, disquotational, minimal, and prosentential theories of truth. Special attention is paid to several versions of disquotationalism, whose plausibility has led to its fairly constant support since the pioneering work of Alfred Tarski, through that by W. V. Quine, and recently in the work of Paul Horwich. I argue that none of these theories (...) meets the correspondence intuition---that a true sentence or proposition in some way corresponds to reality---despite the explicit claims by each to capture this intuition. I distinguish six versions of the correspondence theory, and defend two against traditional objections, standardly taken as decisive against them, and show, plainly, that these two theories capture the correspondence intuition. Due to the importance of meeting this intuition, only these two theories stands a chance of being a satisfactory theory of truth. I argue that the version of the correspondence theory incorporating a simple semantic representation relation is preferable to its rival, for which the representation relation is complex. I present and argue for a novel version of this correspondence theory according to which truth is a correspondence property sensitive to semantic context. One consequence of this context-sensitivity is that an ungrounded sentence does not express a proposition. In addition to accounting for the similarity between the Liar and Truth-Teller sentences, this theory of truth is immune to the Liar Paradox, including empirical versions. It is argued that the Liar Paradox is devastating to all of the other theories above, and even formal theories of truth designed to solve it, such as the revision and vagueness theories. Customized versions of the Liar Paradox besetting this theory are handled by its context-sensitivity, and by enforcing the distinction between truth and truth value. This same pair of considerations also yields solutions to Lob's Paradox and Grelling's Paradox. Arguments similar to those given to defend this correspondence theory show that with one minor alteration, Kripke's fixed point theory may be used to model this correspondence notion of truth. (shrink)

Ernst Jünger is known for his war writings, but is largely ignored by contemporary phenomenologists. In this essay, I explore his e Adventurous Heart which has recently been made available in English. is work consists of a set of fragments which, when related, disclose a coherent ow of philosophical thinking. Speci cally, I show that, beneath a highly poetic and obscure prose, Jünger posits how subjective experience and poetry allow individuals to realize truth. I relate parts of Jünger’s insights (...) to contributions by Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, arguing that Jünger o ers a unique and valuable contribution to the phenomenological discipline. (shrink)

A strength of liberal political institutions is their ability to accommodate pluralism, both allowing divergent comprehensive doctrines as well as constructing the common ground necessary for diverse people to live together. A pressing question is how far such pluralism extends. Which comprehensive doctrines are simply beyond the pale and need not be accommodated by a political consensus? Rawls attempted to keep the boundaries of reasonable disagreement quite broad by infamously denying that political liberalism need make reference to the concept of (...) truth, a claim that has been criticized by Joseph Raz, Joshua Cohen, and David Estlund. In this paper, we argue that these criticisms fail due to the fact that political liberalism can remain non-committal on the nature of truth, leaving the concept of truth in the domain of comprehensive doctrines while still avoiding the issues raised by Raz, Cohen, and Estlund. Further substantiating this point is the fact that Rawls would, and should, include parties in the overlapping consensus whose views on truth may be incoherent. Once it is seen that political liberalism allows such incoherence to reasonable parties, it is clear that the inclusion of truth and the requirement of coherence urged by Raz, Cohen, and Estlund requires more of reasonable people than is necessary for a political consensus. (shrink)

Recently, there has been a shift away from traditional truth-conditional accounts of meaning towards non-truth-conditional ones, e.g., expressivism, relativism and certain forms of dynamic semantics. Fueling this trend is some puzzling behavior of modal discourse. One particularly surprising manifestation of such behavior is the alleged failure of some of the most entrenched classical rules of inference; viz., modus ponens and modus tollens. These revisionary, non-truth-conditional accounts tout these failures, and the alleged tension between the behavior of modal (...) vocabulary and classical logic, as data in support of their departure from tradition, since the revisionary semantics invalidate some of these patterns. I, instead, offer a semantics for modality with the resources to accommodate the puzzling data while preserving classical logic, thus affirming the tradition that modals express ordinary truth-conditional content. My account shows that the real lesson of the apparent counterexamples is not the one the critics draw, but rather one they missed: namely, that there are linguistic mechanisms, reflected in the logical form, that affect the interpretation of modal language in a context in a systematic and precise way, which have to be captured by any adequate semantic account of the interaction between discourse context and modal vocabulary. The semantic theory I develop specifies these mechanisms and captures precisely how they affect the interpretation of modals in a context, and do so in a way that both explains the appearance of the putative counterexamples and preserves classical logic. (shrink)

Truth is a matter of interest not only to philosophers, but to scientists and other researchers in various branches of knowledge. This paper examines Davidson’s views of the concept of truth. In the first section, I provide a brief account of the basic ideas of Davidson’s philosophy. An understanding of Davidson’s philosophy is essential for anyone who wishes to follow recent debates in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of action, the philosophy of logic, and the philosophy of (...) the mind. I give also a brief sketch of the leading traditional theories of truth, i.e., coherence, correspondence and pragmatic theories. In the second section, I give a comprehensive account of Davidson’s main contributions to the truth - the conditions theory of meaning. That the meaning of a sentence can be given by stating the conditions under which it is true, is not a novel idea. It is at least as old as the work of Frege. In addition to Frege, this idea has been held by, among others, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Quine and - as its leader apologist and most recent proponent - Davidson. Before I look at the details of Davidson’s contributions, I show how they relate to the work of Frege, Tarski, and Quine, all of whom greatly influenced Davidson’s theory. Putnam, Dummett, Rorty and many other philosophers rank Davidson among the deflationists. They all think that Tarski’s truth predicates completely capture the concept of truth. This is a mistake. The third section is concerned with this mistake. In the fourth section, I explain Davidson’s criticisms of what he regards as the main other anti-deflationary attempts to characterize truth: views which epistemologize truth on the one hand, and the correspondence theory of truth, on the other hand. Finally, in the fifth section, I make some remarks about Davidson’s treatment of the concept of truth. (shrink)

The idea that logic is in some sense normative for thought and reasoning is a familiar one. Some of the most prominent figures in the history of philosophy including Kant and Frege have been among its defenders. The most natural way of spelling out this idea is to formulate wide-scope deductive requirements on belief which rule out certain states as irrational. But what can account for the truth of such deductive requirements of rationality? By far, the most prominent responses (...) draw in one way or another on the idea that belief aims at the truth. In this paper, I consider two ways of making this line of thought more precise and I argue that they both fail. In particular, I examine a recent attempt by Epistemic Utility Theory to give a veritist account of deductive coherence requirements. I argue that despite its proponents’ best efforts, Epistemic Utility Theory cannot vindicate such requirements. (shrink)

A theory of truth is an explanation of the nature of truth and set of rules that true things obey. A theory of truth is basically an attempt to enlighten on the nature of truth and formulate a set of laws that ‘true’ things follow. When we recall a memory, or analyze a statement, or appeal to evaluate within our brain, in fact, we are in quest for truth. Different theories of truth try to (...) understand it from different perspectives. Attempts to analyze truth down the history can neatly be divided into two: Classical and Contemporary theories. The classical or otherwise known as the traditional theories of truth are, Correspondence theory, Coherence theory, Pragmatic theory. Contemporary theories or otherwise known as modern theories of truth are mostly deflationary theories. Over and above these two categories we shall discuss a new theory of truth known as Functional theory of truth. When we analyze contemporary theories of truth, such as functionalist theory of truth, specifically alethic pluralism which commits the problem of mixed compound and also suggest the solution for the same. (shrink)

As one of the first modern philosophers, Georg Simmel systematically developed a “relativistic world view” (Simmel 2004, VI). In this paper I attempt to examine Simmel’s relativistic answer to the question of truth. I trace his main arguments regarding the concept of truth and present his justification of epistemic relativism. In doing so, I also want to show that some of Simmel’s claims are surprisingly timely. Simmel’s relativistic concept of truth is supported by an evolutionary argument. The (...) first part of this paper outlines that pragmatic foundation of his epistemology. The second part of the paper shows that Simmel develops what today would be called a coherence theory of truth. He presents his coherentist view that every belief is true only in relation to another one primarily as a theory of epistemic justification. The third part turns to Simmel’s original way of dealing with the (in)famous self-refutation charge against relativism. (shrink)

In developing a theory of truth, as the main condition of knowledge, four issues are usually examined: definition or analysis of truth, truth bearer, truth-maker, and relation (in correspondence and coherence theories). A proper theory of truth is the one that affords the explanation of the truth of all types of propositions, and, at the same time, resists the liar paradox. The aim of this inquiry is to analyze Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī’s theory of (...) truth one who is involved both in the liar paradox and in the explanation of the truth of the verity propositions and propositions that are made of intelligibles that have no instance in external world. This inquiry shows, with an analytical approach mostly systematic analysis, that he regards, against the difficulty of the lair paradox, propositions that are other than what they are about as the bearers of truth. Further, it shows that he, against the other difficulty, has two attitudes: first, he desists from the correspondence theory of truth and defines it as “ascription of an ideational thing to what, with its characteristic, is proper for it”; second, he considers the agent intellect to be the truth-maker. Although he regards the correspondence relation as an intentional relation, he does not discuss it much. One explanation could be that the issue of the correspondence relation does not play a serious part in the aforementioned difficulties. (shrink)

How to understand Brentano’s account of truth is a question of some controversy. A number of different views have been put forward as positions that Brentano held at some stage in his career. The received view has it that the early Brentano subscribed to a form of correspondence theory which he later rejected in favor of a definition of truth in terms of correct judging, where the correctness of a judgment is defined in terms of the notion of (...) self-evidence (see Kraus 1966, Szrednicki 1965, Stegmüller 1969, Kamitz 1983, Chrudzimski 2001). This fundamental shift in Brentano’s view is regarded as a change from an ontological to a “gnoseological”, i.e. epistemic, theory of truth (see Kastil 1934). Brentano’s mature view is sometimes said to resemble a neo-Kantian conception of truth or related views (see Kraus 1966, van der Schaar 1999, 2003), it has been compared with a coherence theory of truth (see Krantz 1990/91), and it is regarded as embracing a form of alethic anti-realism that places a substantial epistemic constraint on the concept of truth (see Künne 2003). More recently, Charles Parsons suggested that the early Brentano may also be regarded as a precursor of a deflationist theory of truth (see Parsons 2004). Following up on this proposal, the received view has been challenged by a new interpretation that ascribes to Brentano a deflationist position that he held throughout his career in combination with the view that truth pertains primarily to self-evident judgment (see Brandl forthcoming). Section 1 first summarizes the received view and then indicates two problems raised by this interpretation. Section 2 explains in which sense Brentano may have been a deflationist and how this interpretation avoids the problems of the received view. (shrink)

In this paper, partly historical and partly theoretical, after having shortly outlined the development of the meta-ethics in the 1900?s starting from the Tractatus of Wittgenstein, I argue it is possible to sustain that emotivism and intuitionism are unsatisfactory ethical conceptions, while on the contrary, reason (intended in a logical-deductive sense) plays an effective role both in ethical discussions and in choices. There are some characteristics of the ethical language (prescriptivity, universalizability and predominance) that cannot be eluded (pain the non (...) significativity of the same language) by those who want to morally reason, i.e. by those who intend to regulate their own behaviour on the basis of knowledged and coherent principles. These characteristics can be found whether or not all possible ontological-metaphysics foundations of morals are taken into account. Furthermore the deontic logic systems allow the formalization of ethical theories and - at least in principle - a rigorous critical discussion of the same, but obviously nothing can be affirmed on the value of truth of the axioms of a system. In the deontic logic systems Hume?s law is assumed as an implicit result of inferential (conventional) rules and the acceptance of Hume?s law as a logical-linguistic thesis does not involve the cancellation of values (nihilism) or ethical relativism or indifferentism. (shrink)

This entry explores Charles Peirce's account of truth in terms of the end or ‘limit’ of inquiry. This account is distinct from – and arguably more objectivist than – views of truth found in other pragmatists such as James and Rorty. The roots of the account in mathematical concepts is explored, and it is defended from objections that it is (i) incoherent, (ii) in its faith in convergence, too realist and (iii) in its ‘internal realism’, not realist enough.

This study aims to provide a coherent new interpretation of the notorious anti-hedonism of Speusippus, Plato’s nephew and the second scholarch of the Academy, by reconsidering all the relevant sources concerning his attitude toward pleasure—sources that seem to be in tension or even incompatible with each other. By reassessing Speusippus’ anti-hedonism and Aristotle’s response, it also sheds new light on the Academic debate over pleasure in which he and Aristotle participated: This debate is not merely concerned with the truth (...) and credibility of the arguments for or against hedonism; there are also notable differences among the participants in their understanding of the practical significance of evaluating hedonic experiences. This new interpretation allows us to better understand Aristotle’s selective representation of the intra-school debate and some neglected features of his responses to different interlocutors. (shrink)

This article surveys different philosophical theories about the nature of truth. We give much importance to truth; some demand to know it, some fear it, and others would even die for it. But what exactly is truth? What is its nature? Does it even have a nature in the first place? When do we say that some truth-bearers are true? Philosophers offer varying answers to these questions. In this article, some of these answers are explored and (...) some of the problems raised against them are presented. (shrink)