True to Life by Michael P. Lynch

Author:Michael P. Lynch [Lynch, Michael P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-02-17T05:00:00+00:00

Truth as Fiction

109

But (TN) can’t be derived from the purely nonnormative (T). Therefore, contra minimalism, that schema cannot fully capture everything we believe is true of truth. It can’t capture all the facts about truth.24

Horwich, of course, disagrees. According to Horwich, (T) may not entail (TN) directly, but it does do so given the assumption of certain other obvious facts not involving truth. On this basis, one might claim that whatever else (TN) might be, it is not a substantive fact about truth as such.

According to Horwich, claims about the value of truth are simply more cases of using the word “true” to generalize a more complicated thought.

(TN), in other words, is simply shorthand for our disposition to accept every instance of:

(B)

Other things being equal, it is good to believe that p if and only if p.

Note that (B) doesn’t mention truth at all. In other words, to say that it is good to believe the truth is simply shorthand for saying we are disposed to accept an open-ended stream of little belief norms, namely: It is good to believe that the dog has fleas if and only if the dog has fleas, and it is good to believe that roses are red if and only if roses are red, and it is good to believe that . . . and so on.

The result is that we explain the value of truth in terms that don’t explicitly mention truth. The concept of truth is needed only to help us express that infinite collection of commitments. As a result, the value of truth is either not deeply normative in character after all; or it is deeply normative, but this is de-rivable from the nonnormative T-schema, and hence no threat to minimalism.

This reply does not succeed. If we are to use (B) to help us derive (TN) from (T) then we must be rationally justified in accepting its instances. But if we are willing, a priori, to endorse an infinite list of normative propositions all of which fit a particular pattern, it is highly likely that there is a general, principled reason that we do so. And in my view, the reason we accept (B)’s instances is that we accept (TN); therefore, (B) can’t be used to deduce (TN) itself from (T). Accordingly, (TN) is a fact about truth that minimalism can’t explain. Or so I will now argue.

What is the reason we think that it is good to believe that Socrates was a philosopher if and only if he was, and so on? What, in other words, justifies or rationally explains our acceptance of all the instances of (B)? To see the force of this demand, let’s first look at why one sort of explanation is not going to work. It is not the sort of reply that Horwich himself would make, but 110

Chapter 7

it will help us see the difference between the present call for explanation and a similar one in the case of (T). Suppose we ask why we are inclined, a priori, to endorse every (nonparadoxical) instance of (T).

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