Nothing but the truth María J. Frápolli Department of Philosophy University of Granada.

Nothing but the truth

María J. Frápolli Department of Philosophy

University of Granada

The blind men and the elephant

It was six men of IndostanTo learning much inclined,Who went to see the Elephant (Though all of them were blind),That each by observationMight satisfy his mind

The blind men

The First approached the Elephant,And happening to fallAgainst his broad and sturdy side,At once began to bawl: “God bless me! but the ElephantIs very like a wall!

The Second, feeling of the tusk,Cried, “Ho! what have we hereSo very round and smooth and sharp?To me ’tis mighty clearThis wonder of an ElephantIs very like a spear!”

The blind men/2

The Third approached the animal,And happening to takeThe squirming trunk within his hands,Thus boldly up and spake:“I see,” quoth he, “the ElephantIs very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,And felt about the knee.“What most this wondrous beast is likeIs mighty plain,” quoth he;“ ‘Tis clear enough the ElephantIs very like a tree!”

The blind men/3

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,Said: “E’en the blindest manCan tell what this resembles most;Deny the fact who canThis marvel of an ElephantIs very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begunAbout the beast to grope,Than, seizing on the swinging tailThat fell within his scope,“I see,” quoth he, “the ElephantIs very like a rope!”

John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) based this poem, "The Blind Men and the Elephant", on an Indian fable

Is truth an elephant?

Truth is our elephant

Tarski’s and Quine’s disquotational approachQuine’s characterization as a mechanism for semantic ascent, Horwich’s explanation of truth as a denominalizer, Strawson’s characterization as marker of illocutionary forceGrover’s definition of truth as a former prosentencesPeirce’s view of truth as a limit of researchDavidson’s, Hornsby’s, Dodd’s, Engel’s, Puntel’s, Künne’s ….

All these views correctly explain particular aspects of truth

Is truth an elephant?

Informed common sense(My explanation is descriptive in Greimann’s sense)

The view I will defend is a development of the Aristotelian dictum

To say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true

and of the Ramseyian Insight

What is the meaning of “true”? It seems to me that the answer is really perfectly obvious, that anyone can see what it is and that difficulty only arise when we try to say what it is.

The blind men and truth

Seeing the diversity of proposals, many have thought that truth was indefinable or even a contradictory notion. No wonder…

The blind men and truth/2

Two tasks:

Identifying the properties of truth

Understanding their relative position in a unified theory

Pragmatism is a Naturalism

Pragmatism, putting the focus on actions, is a way of explaining meaning and content as part of the natural

world

Human communicative actions, what we do with words, are our point of departure

The Unity of Truth and the Plurality of Truhs

AsHaack, I belief that“There is one truth, but many truths: I.e., one unambiguous, non-relative truth-concept, but many and various propositions, etc., that are true. One truth-concept: to say that a claim is true is to say (not that anyone, or everyone, believes it, or that it follows from this or that theory, or that there is good evidence for it, but) simple that things are as it says”. (Haack, Putting Philosophy to work, pp. 59-60)

And against davidson’s advice, I will commit “The folly of trying to define truth”.

The traditional picture

Syntax describes a structure, a skeleton, that is later fleshed out with semantic features.

Expressions with their syntactic and semantic features are tools that can be used in communicative actions

Syntax Semantics Pragmatics

Levels of meaning

pragmatics

semantics

syntax

Rational behaviour, of which linguistic behaviour is a distinguished part, does not come into portions. Human life is a reality that is continuous, and understanding it requires a global stance. Pragmatics is the foundational level of analysis.

Truth ascriptions/1

The PRAGMATICS of LOGICAL NOTIONS / 8

The order of the enquiry should be:

1. Beginning with what speakers do with truth ascriptions

2. Then, continue with the semantic features that permit the use of truth for the purposes studied in 1., and then

3. Looking for the formal features that give support to the semantic properties

(Pragmatics Semantics Syntax

Truth ascriptions/2


To understand how truth works in natural languages one has to look at the actions performed by the speakers when they use truth ascriptions.

Truth ascriptions are the paradigmatic sentences in which truth appears. In them, somebody attributes truth to what some body else has said or to propositions in a class

Truth ascriptions/3


1. It is true that Brazil is very much like Spain in some aspects

2. “Brazil is bigger than Spain” is a true sentence

3. Darwin’s is a true picture of how life evolve on Earth

4. She said nothing but the truth5. He spoke truly6. Everything Benedictus XVI says is true

The syntactic role of truth

Truth can appear in language as a predicate “is true”, as a sentential operator “it is true that”, as an adverb “truly”, as a substantive “the Truth”. The grammatical form does not have any effect in the job performed by the notion.

The syntactic perspective has to determine the status of terms and their combinatorial rules. The truth predicate works as a denominalizer. (Tarski’s and Quine’s disquotationalism touch upon this point)

The syntactic role of truth/2

Proposition (expressed by Victoria’s utterance “I do not like Mondays”):

[Victoria does not like Mondays]Designation of the proposition (exhibitive):

[“Victoria does not like Mondays”]Designation of the proposition (blind):

[What Victoria said]Expression of the proposition (exhibitive):

[“Victoria does not like Mondays” is a true sentence]Expression of the proposition (blind):

[What Victoria said is true].

The syntactic role of truth/3

Truth is syntactically a mechanism to convert designations of propositions into expressions of them. This is its combinatorial function.

In this sense, Horwich is right in saying that the truth predicate is a denominalizer.

(Disquotationalism also says something right: that truth can be a

mechanism to remove quotation marks.)

(this syntactical explanation is true, but it is not the whole truth)

The semantic role of truth ascriptions

The “elementary proposition” of truth is a truth ascription.

Fregean Principle of context

Truth ascriptions of all kinds are propositional variables, i.e. pro-forms of the sentential kind

Pro-forms

Pro-forms are natural language variables.

The best known kind of pro-forms are pro-nouns.

Pronouns require a two-factor theory of meaning

(Kaplan’s, for instance, that distinguished between character and content)

The semantic role of truth ascriptions/2

Pronouns accomplished three tasks:

1.They are vehicles of direct reference[This is my car]

2.They are vehicles of anaphoric reference[I heard about this car, and I bought it]

3. They allow nominal generalization[When I own a car, I take care of it]


The rest of pro-forms work as pronouns do. They also accomplish tasks analogous to the three mentioned, although that applied to the different semantic categories.

Pronouns refer: they are singular terms. But sentences, for instance, are not referential devices. Sentences are appropriate to express propositions not to refer to them


Two kinds of pro-sentences:Nominal pro-sentences (expressions with the

grammatical category of singular terms that have as their contents complete propositions)

Sentential pro-sentences: expressions with the grammatical category of sentences that act as propositional variables.

Examples (NP) I reject what she said(NP) Victoria declared that she had not been there, but I did

not believe it(SP) It is true(SP) What is said is false

Pro-adverbs

Pro-adverbs:1. Direct reference:

I love being here2. Anaphoric reference:

I will go back to Spain, and I’ll be there until September

3. GeneralizationEverywhere I go, I find nice people there

Pro-sentences

1. Direct reference (??):1.1 It is true that Poland is very much like Spain in some aspects1.2 “Poland is bigger than Spain” is a true sentence

2. Anaphoric reference:2.1 Victoria said that the they have had a good time, and Joan denied it2.2 A: It is hot here

B: What A says is true3. Generalization

3.1 If President Bush says something, Condoleeza ratifies it3.2 Everything the Pope says is true

The Liar

First, Truth “bearers”:Propositions and not sentences are contents of

truth-ascriptions. Sentences are the “bearers” of meaning. But what is inherited by a truth ascription is a content.

A: It is hot hereB: Poland is a bigger than SpainC: Disquotationalism is a poor theoryD: I have never been in Russia

This is true

The Liar/2

A: This is not trueB: What A says is true

If there is no proposition inherited, A’s act is contentless. And is B’s act, in which B should have been inherited the content of A’s act. The whole series is ungrounded

It does help talking of sentences, for sentences are only derivatively true or false. They are true or false insofar as they express a true or false proposition

Variety of truth ascriptions

Disquotationalists focus on sentences with quotation marks(“Snow is white” is a true sentence)

Reduntantists focus on sentences that include a truth sentential operator

(It is true that Spain is a Parliamentary monarchy)

Pro-sententialists focus on sentences whose subject is a description…

(What the Pope says is true)

A classification is called for …

Classification of truth-ascriptions

Singular

General

Blind

Exhibitive

Blind

Exhibitive

Classification of truth-ascriptions/2

• Type A. Singular Truth-ascriptions: Truth-ascriptions that have as content a singular proposition. They split

into two types: exhibitive and blind.


• A.1 Exhibitive: Truth ascriptions that show up in their very wording the singular proposition that are their content. Examples:

– A.1.a “snow is white” is a true sentence

– A.1.b That Granada is south from Madrid is true

– A.1.c It is true that Victoria doesn’t like Mondays


• A.2 Blind: Truth-ascriptions that don’t display in their wording the proposition that are their content. Examples:

- A.2.a His claim was true

- A.2.b She is telling the truth

- A.2.c It is true what she says


• Type B. General Truth-ascriptions: Truth-ascriptions whose contents are general, for they include some kind of quantifier in a primary occurrence. They also split into exhibitive and blind.


– B.1 Exhibitive: Truth-ascriptions that show in their wording their general content.

Examples:

B.1.a The theory of evolution is a true theory

B.1.b Naturalism is true


B.2 Blind: Truth-ascriptions that don’t display their general content. Examples:

• B.2.a Only a few theories held by the scientific community in the xix century are true

• B.2.b Everything the Pope says is true• B.2.c It is true all what she has said

The pragmatic role of truth ascriptions

I: All truth ascriptions present an expressive character

Expressivism (+): Making something explicitExpressivism (–): some terms don’t contribute a

component to the proposition expressed by the sentences in which they appear.

[Examples: Logical constants in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus

Terms of conventional implicatures in the Gricean Project]


Expressivism is the general idea under which Strawson’s characterization of truth as marker of illocutionary force falls.

Besides expressivism, besides showing the kind of speech act involved, speakers perform some other tasks when they use truth-ascriptions.

Different kinds of ascriptions are suitable for different kinds of pragmatic tasks

The “vertical” role of truth ascriptions

• Type A exhibitive truth ascriptions parallel the pronouns role of picking up an individual for further consideration; these ascriptions “pick up” a proposition and exhibit it too for further consideration. We might dub this function of including a new proposition in the realm of settled knowledge the “vertical role” of pro-sentences.

• Falsity ascriptions are also pro-sentences; a singular exhibitive falsity ascription, such as 1.c “Rio is south from Portoalegre” is a false sentence,explicitly takes out a content from the realm of acceptable knowledge.

The “horizontal” role of truth ascriptions

Blind ascriptions permit a content’s endorsement by assuming the commitments of an assertive act that has this particular content, and by deferring the entitlements to the agent of the latter. As entitlements and commitments are context dependent and the scope of a truth ascription is contextually restricted, a non-lazy blind truth ascription extends its scope to a new context.

The “horizontal” role of truth ascriptions/2

It is a way of moving a content across contexts, from the context referred to to the context of the ascription. The movement of entitlements and commitments from context to context, and the corresponding displacement of the content, is marked by the presence of blind truth ascriptions. We call this pragmatic function the “horizontal role” of pro-sentences.

The pragmatic role of general truth ascriptions

General truth ascriptions, both exhibitive and blind, add to the vertical and horizontal roles, all the pragmatic functions linked to generality.

p (The Theory of Evolution p p) p (the Pope says that p p).

(Natural language quantifiers are binary operators)

They, as the rest of quantified sentences, do not express propositions but transitions to make some moves between propositions. They are rules to assert something once something else has been asserted.


General truth ascriptions are thus permissions to assert

and they add in the two pragmatic functions that we have related to singular ascriptions. They possess expressive character, for they make explicit the assertive character of the act at issue, and they have the dynamic character proper of anaphoric movements


The pragmatic role of general truth ascriptions is thus complex. They are expressive devices that involve semantic anaphoric links. Ascriptions of the blind kind also include pragmatic anaphoric links, links that bind acts of assertion. In both cases, generality indicates permission, i.e. entitlement: in one kind of ascription it is the permission to assert any member of a class of propositions, actually asserted or not, and in the other one, it is a permission to transfer the content and the conditions of an act to a new context.


• The expressive character of truth ascriptions matches to the semantic feature of the truth operator of being higher order, the anaphoric functions, both semantic and pragmatic, are harmonic with the semantic conception of truth ascriptions as propositional variables. For the case of general ascriptions, their categorization as permissions fit their logico-semantic analysis as quantified structures.

What else?

Redundancy: some uses are redundant and some uses are not

The alleged epistemic character of truth. Truth is not an epistemic notion although the ascription of truth to a content presupposes that some epistemic tests have been passed.

Truth in mathematics, Truth in Ethics. Recall that truth-ascriptions are variables and can inherited any content whatsoever…


.As Ramsey said in his posthumous paper, “The Nature of

Truth”, everybody knows what the word truth means, the problem is to explain it.

Maybe, a difficulty has been to disregard the notion’s complexity and the use speakers make of it.

Our elephant

Thanks for your attention

Nothing but the truth María J. Frápolli Department of Philosophy University of Granada.

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