Primitive Disclosive Alethism

Abstract

The contemporary debate about truth is polarized between deflationists and those who offer robust accounts of truth. I present a theory of truth called ‘Primitive Disclosive Alethism’ that occupies the middle ground between these two extremes. Contrary to deflationist claims, truth has a nature beyond its merely linguistic, expressive function. Truth is objective and non-epistemic, yet cannot be characterized in terms of correspondence. Primitive Disclosive Alethism offers a metaphysically satisfying explanation of our correspondence intuitions, while explaining why the concept of truth is an undefined primitive. The theory also explains why the T-schema offers the clearest expression of what makes a sentence true. I distinguish this theory from the Identity Theory of Truth which equates true propositions with facts.