Truth as One and Many * By Michael Lynch

Abstract

In Truth as One and Many, Michael Lynch offers a new theory of truth. There are two kinds of theory of truth in the literature. On the one hand, we have (for want of a better term) logical theories, which seek to construct formal systems that are consistent (or sometimes paraconsistent), while also containing a predicate (or predicates) which have as many as possible of the properties which we ordinarily take the English predicate ‘is true’ to have; salient examples include Tarski’s and Kripke’s theories of truth. On the other hand, we have (again for want of a better term) metaphysical theories, which seek to give a non-formal account of the nature of truth – of what (if anything) truth consists in, of what it means to say that something is true; salient examples include correspondence, coherence and deflationary theories of truth. Lynch’s theory – functionalism about truth – is of the second sort.