Truth Predicates, Truth Bearers, and their Variants (original) (raw)

Theories of truth can hardly avoid taking into account how truth is expressed in natural language. Existing theories of truth have generally focused on true occurring with that-clauses. This paper takes a closer look at predicates of truth (and related notions) when they apply to objects as the referents of referential noun phrases, focusing on what I call the 'core' of language. It argues that truth predicates and their variants, predicates of correctness, satisfaction, and validity, do not apply to propositions (not even with that-clauses), but to a range of attitudinal and modal objects, objects we refer to as 'claims', 'beliefs', 'judgments', 'demands', 'promises, 'obligations' etc. As such natural language reflects a notion of truth that is primarily a normative notion conveyed by correct. This normative notion, however, is not action-guiding, but rather constitutive of representational objects independently of any actions that may go along with them (in the sense of Jarvis 2012). The paper furthermore argues that the predicate true is part of a larger class of satisfaction predicates (satisfied, realized, taken up etc). The semantic differences among different satisfaction predicates, the paper will argue, are best accounted for in terms of a truthmaker theory along the lines of Fine's (to appear) truthmaker semantics. Truthmaker semantics also provides a notion of partial content applicable to attitudinal and modal objects, which may exhibit partial correctness, partial satisfaction, and partial validity.