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ous sentences (tokens or types – take your pick; it doesn’t matter at his point). And the preferred word for this is a proposition (though some, such as Strawson in his earlier writing, use the word statement to the same effect).

There are big philosophical questions about propositions which need not detain us. Are they real entities, in which case they are non-physical entities (and what’s wrong with that? Is that all too spooky for us?) This is the realist theory of propositions. Or are they just a convenient manner of speaking; in other words, hypothetical entities postulated heuristically (i.e. for theoretical convenience, but not to be taken as literally real)? This is the nominalist position.

Let us say then, while leaving it open how this is to be interpreted philosophically, that it is propositions that are true or false. The relation theory holds that truth is a relationship between a proposition and X. What is X?

There are three common competing answers; namely the world (the correspondence theory of truth), other propositions (the coherence theory of truth) and utilities (the pragmatist theory of truth).

The most common is probably that truth is a relation of correspondence between a proposition and a fact. This theory was held by Russell, by the early Austrian-born Cambridge philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1989 -1951) and the Oxford philosopher John Langshaw Austin (1911 – 1960) (not do be confused with the earlier London positivist jurisprudentialist John Austin).

So if:

(1)  The cat is on the mat

is true, then an ordered pair of a designated cat and a designated mat, will be in the on relation. That will be the fact with which it corresponds, and which makes it true.

The theory works well on the face of it, but only, it seems, for simple affirmative propositions, or so Strawson argues. Consider the proposition:

(2)  The cat is not on the mat.

With what does that correspond? The cat up the tree? The cat across the road? What is the fact that makes it true? Or does the world contain negative facts along side (positive) facts? All of a sudden the theory moves from clarity to obscurity, from simplicity to complexity.

And consider:

(3)  Either the cat is on the mat or it is under the bed.

Do we postulate disjunctive facts to make that true? I am not suggesting these questions cannot be answered (although Strawson makes a good case that they cannot be). Suffice it to say the theory quickly becomes exceedingly messy.

What of the Coherence Theory of Truth? This is associated with the late nineteenth early twentieth century English Absolute Idealist philosopher Francis Herbert Bradley (1846 -1924). The Coherence Theory holds that what makes (1) true is the extent to which it coheres (sits well with) all the other things we accept as true. For example it would not sit well with the contemporaneous belief:

(4)  (But) I can see the cat outside in the garden.

On the coherence theory, this requires an adjustment, and you will dismiss as untrue the proposition that it is easier to dispense with.

TASK 4: The coherence theory has been described as (i) a relativist (i.e. a non-absolutist) theory of truth – i.e. it means whether or not this is judged to be true is relative to (is dependent upon) what else has been judged to be true, and (ii) a subjectivist theory of truth – i.e. that som本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。