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5 Deflationism Deflationism is the most popular philosophical view of truth these days. Many philosophers believe that the view is essentially correct. But there is surprisingly little agreement on what the view is committed to. This is to some extent due to the fact that just as mechanism is not really a physical theory, deflationism is not a theory of the laws of truth. It is rather a view on the nature and role of the concept of truth. In this chapter, we look at what philosophers mean when they say that truth should be approached in a deflationary way. We outline the differences of opinion as to how the view should be stated. Along the way, and especially toward the end of the chapter, I take a stance on the question of what deflationism should and should not commit itself to. 5.1 The Unbearable Lightness of Truth Deflationism is a vague doctrine, and it comes in many flavors. It is important to distinguish among these senses and to carve out a tenable version of the theory. It is argued that progress has been made on this front. Formulations of deflationism have been evolving in the past decades: We are slowly arriving at more robust formulations of deflationism. Truth is sometimes described as one of the three principal domains of philosophy : Truth, Good, and Beauty. In a “superficial” way, it used to be said, the special sciences are also occupied with truth, namely, with truth in special domains. But in philosophy, we are concerned with the nature of Truth in general, with Truth in the deep and profound sense, as one of the absolutely fundamental categories of Being. Deflationists dismiss this as babble from the sick bed. If anything, the situation is quite the reverse. The sciences are concerned with truth in a substantial sense, namely, with the specific propositions (concerning a given domain) that 60 Chapter 5 are true. Philosophy is the most general intellectual discipline. It is concerned with truth in a less substantial and more formal sense: It is concerned with the concept of truth. Even the different branches of philosophy count in this respect as special sciences. According to deflationism, a satisfactory theory of truth does not substantially contribute to resolving disputes in epistemology or metaphysics. Deflationists are wont to quoteTarski himself on this issue [Tarski 1944, p. 362]: [W]e may accept [Tarski’s] conception of truth without giving up any epistemological attitude we may have had; we may remain naive realists, critical realists or idealists , empiricists or metaphysicians—whatever we were before. [Tarski’s] conception is completely neutral toward all these issues. This is reflected in the fact that, among the proponents of deflationism about truth, one indeed finds empiricists, realists, nominalists, and platonists. So the idea is that, unlike most other philosophical disciplines, the theory of truth does not have a substantial domain of its own. The domain of the theory of truth consists of the bearers of truth. These are linguistic entities (sentences), and therefore the theory of truth should be considered as a subdiscipline of the philosophy of language. Other philosophical fields do have nonlinguistic domains of their own (knowledge, reality as a whole, value, etc.), which are interconnected. The truths of the theory of truth merely supervene on facts that lie within the domain of investigation of other disciplines. But then, what kind of notion is truth, and what is it good for? At a first approximation, deflationism claims that the notion of truth is akin to logical notions like “and,” and “not.” Logical notions are usually not regarded as deep philosophical notions. In a similar fashion, truth should be regarded as a superficial notion. This is what is meant when it is said that the notion of truth should be deflated. Traditional discussions of truth are like hot air balloons: They contain little substance. 5.2 Commitments of Deflationist Theories A deflationist theory of truth consists of two parts [Gupta 1993, pp. 283–284]. First, it contains an account of the meaning of the concept of truth. Second, it contains a description of the role that truth should play in our intellectual practices, in particular in philosophy. The second part is based on the first part. A deflationist theory of truth should also tell us what kind of concept the notion of truth really is. [3.144.33.41...

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