Deflationist Truth

Abstract

A taxonomy of theories of truth is provided. Two versions of deflationist theories of “true” are distinguished, T-schema deflationism and semantic-descent deflationism. These are distinguished from a deflationist theory of truth-ascription, and distinguished in turn from a deflationist theory of truths—a view that the various truths share no significant property. Opposed to these deflationist positions are various substantivalist truth theories. It is suggested that the semantic-descent deflationist theory of “true” and the deflationist theory of truths are correct, although the considerations that support or attack these different deflationist theories are largely independent of one another. A deflationist theory of truth-ascription is denied, however. Sometimes statements do attribute a truth-property to a set of statements. The chapter ends with an evaluation of the cases where supplementing a formal language with a truth predicate is not conservative. It is argued that these cases do not bear on debates about truth deflationism.