The truth redundancy theory

The logical-epistemological foundations of the truth redundancy theory as a kind of alethic deflationism, according to which there is no special property of truth and the predicate true does not play an essential logical role, are revealed and considered. Fixing hopelessness of the traditional statement of the question of truth, F. Ramsey and A. Ayer suggest speaking about the predicate «true» as about an expressive means, which, if wanted, could be rid of. However, there are many statements with the true in a predicative position as in the sentence What he says is true. It is shown that grammatical difficulties arising in case of possible elimination of the truth predicate are quite solvable within the prosentential theory of truth (A. Prior, C. Williams and D. Grover), according to which it is erroneous to accept true for a predicate expressing any real property. From P. Strawson's point of view, the truth bears a certain performative potential expressed in someone's agreements, approvals or acknowledgements, however, it is not property itself. The main argument in favour of recognition of the logical redundancy of the truth predicate consists in the evident equivalence of expressions It is true that р» and «р. With reference to J. Austin's and M. Dummett's concepts it is shown that it is problematic to adhere to the redundancy theory and at the same time to approve that owing to the analysis of statements we are capable to solve successfully the problem of their validity. The conclusion is that the truth redundancy theory is incompatible with the analysis of the sense of the sentence in terms of truth conditions. Moreover, such analysis cannot explain the sense of the sentence since in order to define truth conditions of the sentence we should already know its sense. Adherents of the truth redundancy theory are right when stating that to make a statement and to attribute validity to it is the same, but it is wrong to conclude from this that the true is a logically excessive concept. The truth is the central concept of logic because according to deductive laws true conclusions are deduced from true premises. Certainly, it would be possible to doubt the correctness of the procedure of logic conclusion and, as consequence, the correctness of the use of the truth predicate. Nevertheless, for further discussion in general to have any sense it is necessary to recognize that, making a statement, we anyhow aim at ascertaining its validity.

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