On McDowell's identity conception of truth

Abstract

Julian Dodd (1995) has argued that John McDowell's position on the relation between mind and world is committed to not one but two identity theories of truth, which McDowell conflates with one another and whose combination is incoherent. According to one ('robust') theory, a proposi tion is true if and only if it is identical with a fact, where 'facts' are to be understood as 'item[s] with particular objects and properties as constitu ents whose totality makes up the world' (1995: 161). This conception, Dodd tells us, would allow McDowell to realize his goal of eliminating any gap between content and reality. According to the other ('truistic') Fregean conception, a fact just is a true Thought 'rather than an occupant of the world' (1995: 161-62), because its constituents are Fregean senses rather than objects and properties. On this identity theory, a Thought is true if and only if it is identical with a fact. This conception of facts would allow McDowell to realize the goal of holding a merely truistic position. But Dodd claims that by conflating these two theories, McDowell ends up holding an incoherent position incoherent because, if it has anything to say about the relation between mind and world, it is that the world is made up of Thoughts. Although Dodd's verdict has recently been echoed with approval by Christian Suhm, Philip Wagemann and Florian Wessels (Suhm et al. 1999) and Pascal Engel (Engel 2001, 2005), we think that these discussions fail to engage with the kind of position that McDowell holds, and so miss their target entirely. We also think, however, that McDowell's more recent work does not make it any easier than his earlier work to see how it could be the case that a Thought is true if and only if it is identical with a fact,