Truth and Assertion

Abstract

This thesis argues that the most profitable way to understand the concept of truth is to understand what takes place in the process of interpreting another speaker’s assertions. In the process of discerning what another speaker means and believes we are not only compelled to find ourselves and our interlocutor to be for the most part correct about the world, but are also inevitably alerted to the possibility of perspectives on the world that differ from, and perhaps even surpass our own. Approaching truth by investigating the process of interpretation thus allows for the inherent tension between two major intuitions regarding truth to be explored and accounted for. The first chapter of this thesis sets out how this tension has provided problems for traditional attempts to account for truth, while the second then argues that these difficulties are resolved by focusing on how assertions are interpreted. This involves a move away from trying to specify the essence of truth, whether this be in terms of a correspondence with reality or in terms of justification and agreement, and towards trying to understand how both the epistemic and non-epistemic features of truth that these conflicting accounts pick up on could emerge in the context of our interactions with one another. The account of truth that is put forward at this point is influenced in large part by the discussions of interpretation to be found in the work of Donald Davidson. The third and fourth chapters of this thesis then consider two possible objections to this way of explaining truth. The third chapter responds to the objection that focusing on agreements and disagreements between speakers misplaces the significance of truth, for it overlooks the more primitive relation between subject and world. This objection is considered first in terms of radical sceptical doubt, and then by examining the alternative that appears to be offered by traditional pragmatist accounts of doubt and belief, which seem to favour an emphasis on successful and unsuccessful action in the world rather than communication. The fourth and final chapter then deals with roughly the opposite objection: that neither interactions with our environment nor the interpretive process of comprehending the beliefs of others is sufficient to give rise to the concept of truth. This argument appears to be put forward by Huw Price in his account of truth as a “Third Norm” that might be absent even in circumstances when speakers are exchanging meaningful assertions with one another.