Relative Truth
Manuel García-Carpintero and Max Kölbel
Abstract
The truth of an utterance depends on various factors. Usually these factors are assumed to be: the meaning of the sentence uttered; the context in which the utterance was made; and the way things are in the world. Recently however, a number of cases have been discussed where there seems to be reason to think that the truth of an utterance is not yet fully determined by these three factors, and that truth must therefore depend on a further factor. The most prominent examples include utterances about values, utterances attributing knowledge, utterances which state that something is probable or e ... More
The truth of an utterance depends on various factors. Usually these factors are assumed to be: the meaning of the sentence uttered; the context in which the utterance was made; and the way things are in the world. Recently however, a number of cases have been discussed where there seems to be reason to think that the truth of an utterance is not yet fully determined by these three factors, and that truth must therefore depend on a further factor. The most prominent examples include utterances about values, utterances attributing knowledge, utterances which state that something is probable or epistemically possible, and utterances about the contingent future. In these cases, some have argued, the standard picture needs to be modified to admit extra truth-determining factors, and there is further controversy about the exact role of any such extra factors. All the essays in this volume are about this issue. It is a narrowly defined issue in the philosophy of language, but one with important connections to other areas of philosophy, such as metaethics, metaphysics, and epistemology.
Keywords:
truth,
relativism,
knowledge attributions,
future contingents,
context dependence,
disagreements,
value relativism,
matters of taste,
subjectivism,
assertion
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2008 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199234950 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2010 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199234950.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Manuel García-Carpintero, editor
University of Barcelona
Author Webpage
Max Kölbel, editor
University of Birmingham and ICREA at Universitat de Barcelona
Author Webpage
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