No description available.

Two aspects of truth constitute the subject of investigation in this thesis. These two aspects arise in the dependence of truth on language and fact. A statement is true or false, as the case may be, jointly in virtue of what it means and of how things are. This double dependence . of truth on meaning and reality establishes prima facie interconnections between these notions, which I am here concerned to analyse. Consideration of these interconnections with respect to individual sentences suggests that truth is dependent on meaning. After all, we cannot begin to assess a statement as to its veracity unless we first understand it, that is to say, grasp its meaning. This claim is unexceptionable, but only from a vantage point which precludes a general understanding of the concepts involved. It quite leaves out of account the evident consideration that it is only in the context of a language that a collocation of symbols or sounds is endowed with sense- While it must be that, to determine the truth or falsity of a statement, we have first to know its meaning, it does not follow that the concept of truth is to be analysed in terms of meaning. And indeed, at the level where we consider meaning in terms of the systematic functioning of language, we find that truth underlies meaning. In §1.2,1 consider four arguments which aim to show that an answer to the question "how is a statement endowed with meaning?'' is to be couched in terms of truth. [Continued ...]

Thèse--Faculté des lettres de Paris.

Thèse--Faculté des lettres de Paris.

Thèse--Faculté des lettres de Paris.

Is Spinoza's theory of truth a correspondence, coherence, or ontological theory? There is disagreement in Spinoza scholarship with regard to this question. Various scholars privilege different aspects of Spinoza's writings in order to make him a correspondence, coherence, or ontological theorist. But is there another reading of Spinoza that one could offer to bridge the gap between these different theories of truth? In this thesis I show that Spinoza's theory of truth is not exclusively correspondence, coherence, or ontological. On the reading I defend, Spinoza offers a theory of truth that is an amalgam of doctrines suited to the metaphysical commitments of his system.

No description available.

Theories of Relativity is a post-modern novella that questions the authority of truth. Multiple perspectives are utilized in the narrative to recount how the murder of a young girl has affected the tragedy's survivors. The focus of the narrative is not to determine the innocence or guilt of the accused, but to show how perspective influences our perception of truth. Eighteen pages of prefatory remarks comprise the body of an essay that explores the parameters of truth.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pittsburgh, 1986. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 230-236).

This thesis is concerned with the challenge truth-value gaps pose to the principle of bivalence. The central question addressed is: are truth-value gaps counterexamples to bivalence and is the supposition of counterexamples coherent? My aim is to examine putative cases of truth-value gaps against an argument by Timothy Williamson, which shows that the supposition of counterexamples to bivalence is contradictory. The upshot of his argument is that either problematic utterances say nothing, or they cannot be neither true nor false. I start by identifying truth-bearers: an utterance, for instance, is a truth-bearer if it says that something is the case. Truth-bearers are evaluable items, with truth- and falsity-conditions statable in corresponding instances of schemas for truth and falsehood. A genuine case of a truth-value gap should be an utterance that is neither true nor false but says something to be the case. But it is inconsistent to accept the schemas for truth and falsehood and the existence of genuine cases of truth-value gaps. Secondly, I expound Williamson’s argument, which explores this inconsistency, and I identify two kinds of strategy to disarm his argument: those that preserve the schemas for truth and falsehood, and those that do not. Neither strategy is found to be persuasive. Thirdly, I argue that cases of reference failure causing truth-value gaps illustrate the upshot of Williamson’s argument. Fourthly, I examine Scott Soames’s account of liar sentences as counterexamples to bivalence. Soames adopts a strategy of the first kind to avoid contradictions. I argue that his solution allows some contradictions to be true, and that he fails to show that liar sentences are truth-bearers. Finally, I examine Charles Travis’s case for isostheneia: an equal balancing of reasons to evaluate a statement as true or as false, in which case a statement is neither. Travis avoids contradictions by adopting a strategy of the second kind. I argue that the schemas for truth and falsehood are immune to Travis’s objections, and that isostheneia fails to identify evaluable items. The cases examined confirm that utterances that are neither true nor false say nothing. My claim is thus that truth-value gaps are not counterexamples to bivalence.