Thursday, October 20, 2005

David - Vision's 'Veritas: The Correspondance Theory and It's Critics'

"Early in the 20th century, Russell and Moore maintained that a belief is true iff it corresponds with a fact, false iff it doesn't. This theory of truth is but one member of a large family whose various members invoke various relations, relating truthbearers of various sorts to worldly items of various ontological categories. In view of this multiplicity of versions of "the" correspondence theory, one might think the first item on the agenda should be to zoom in on one specific version and lay it out in some detail. But that, according to Vision, is not such a good idea. He points out that the main action in debates about correspondence is not about this or that specific version but about the viability of the correspondence project as a whole. If we tie our hands at the outset to one specific version, we will get enmeshed in debating the pros and cons of that particular formulation, losing sight of the more basic issues and the bigger picture. Not surprisingly, then, most of Vision's book is a general discussion and defense of the bigger correspondence picture. He conducts the discussion in informal terms and uses various alternative "broad characterizations" of correspondence-type theories, driving home the point that he does not want us to get hung up on the specifics of any one formulation." - NDPR.

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