Abstract
What is the property of being true like? To answer this question, begin with a Canberra-plan analysis of the concept of truth. That is, assemble the platitudes for the concept of truth, and then investigate which property might satisfy them. This project is aided by Friedman and Sheard’s groundbreaking analysis of twelve logical platitudes for truth. It turns out that, because of the paradoxes like the liar, the platitudes for the concept of truth are inconsistent. Moreover, there are so many distinct paradoxes that only small subsets of platitudes for truth are consistent. The result is that there is no property of being true. The failure of the Canberra plan analysis of the concept of truth, points the way toward a new methodology: a conceptual engineering project for the concept of truth. Conceptual engineering is assessing the quality of our concepts, and when they are found defective, offering new and better concepts to replace them for certain purposes. Still, there are many aletheic properties, which are properties satisfied by reasonably large subsets of platitudes for the concept of truth. We can treat these aletheic properties as a guide to the multitude of new aletheic concepts, which are concepts similar to, but distinct from, the concept of truth. Any new aletheic concept or team of concepts might be called on to replace the concept of truth. In particular, the concepts of ascending truth and descending truth are recommended, but the most important point is that we need a full-scale investigation into the space of aletheic properties and new aletheic concepts—that is, we need an Aletheic Principles Project (APP).
Highlights
The planWe start by following the Canberra plan, certainly one of the most popular philosophical methodologies at the present time
There has been a fruitful interaction between those working on the nature of truth and those working on the paradoxes that affect truth, like the liar paradox
There is a school of thought on the liar paradox that diagnoses it as a defect in our very concept of truth
Summary
We start by following the Canberra plan, certainly one of the most popular philosophical methodologies at the present time This strategy will eventually be abandoned because there turns out to be no property even close to what we think of as the property of being true. The platitudes for a given concept might be analytic (i.e., true in virtue of their meaning alone), but one can follow the Canberra plan even if one takes platitudes to be uncontroversial principles or bits of common sense. Even if nothing perfectly fits the platitudes, something might fit them relatively well—well enough to say that it is what the term in question is about In either of these cases, one might continue the investigation by considering whether that thing that fits the platitudes is fundamental or derivative, and if it is derivative, how it relates to the fundamental level of reality. When thinking about the property of being true, we often unreflectively treat this as a principle of the property of being true: if snow is white, ‘snow is white’ has the property of being true
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