Wittgenstein's Account of Truth

By Sara Ellenbogen

Subjects: Epistemology
Series: SUNY series in Philosophy
Paperback : 9780791456262, 164 pages, January 2003
Hardcover : 9780791456255, 164 pages, January 2003

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Table of contents

Abbreviations

Preface

Acknowledgments

PART I. FROM "MEANING IS USE" TO THE REJECTION OF TRANSCENDENT TRUTH

1. Wittgenstein's Rejection of Realism versus Semantic Antirealism

2. The Positive Account of Truth

3. Antirealism Revisited

PART II. FROM "MEANING IS USE" TO SEMANTIC ANTIREALISM

4. The Acquisition Argument and the Manifestation Criterion

5. Antirealism Presupposes Realism

6. Tensions Between Wittgenstein and Dummett

7. Semantic Antirealism Is Inconsistent

PART III. WHY A REVISIONIST ACCOUNT OF TRUTH?

8. Criteria and Justification Conditions

9. Criteria and Realist Truth Conditions

10. Why Criteria Are Not Defeasible

11. Criterial Change, Conceptual Change, and Their Implications for the Concept of Truth

12. Why a Revisionist Account of Truth?

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Explores the complex nature of truth in Wittgenstein’s philosophy.

Description

Wittgenstein's Account of Truth challenges the view that semantic antirealists attribute to Wittgenstein: that we cannot meaningfully call verification-transcendent statements "true." Ellenbogen argues that Wittgenstein would not have held that we should revise our practice of treating certain statements as true or false, but instead would have held that we should revise our view of what it means to call a statement true. According to the dictum "meaning is use," what makes it correct to call a statement "true" is not its correspondence with how things are, but our criterion for determining its truth. What it means for us to call a statement "true" is that we currently judge it true, knowing that we may some day revise the criteria whereby we do so.

Sara Ellenbogen is a visiting scholar at Boston University.

Reviews

"Clearly written and tightly argued, this book throws light on the complexities of Wittgenstein's writings and thereby on the complexities of our concept of truth." — William H. Brenner, author of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations

"Wittgenstein's Account of Truth presents a clear, concise summary of the semantic antirealist's position in the debate over the nature of truth in philosophy of language, and how it relates to the later Wittgenstein." — Jonathan Bain, Polytechnic University