On some aspects of the concept of truth

• Main Author: Isaacson, Daniel Rufus
• Published: University of Oxford 1975
• Subjects: 100; Truth
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.460441

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 ...]