PhD candidate Brett Coppenger and I are spending the summer reading Richard Fumerton‘s Realism and the Correspondence Theory of Truth. Epistemology is Brett’s main research interest, so my understanding of the book is highly dependent on him.
Chapter One: Distinctions—Fumerton lays out the tenets of his view that he feels he must ‘stick to’ in order for his argument to succeed.
Truth, on Fumerton’s view, is a relational property. In order for something to be a relational property, there must be at least two relata, or things being related. Being outside of something is a relational property; being tall is a non-relational property.
The two things in relation that create truth are truth makers and truth bearers. A truth maker is something like a fact—a way that the world is. A truth bearer is something like a proposition, or a belief—something that can be true. Truth bearers gain truth when they correspond to truth makers. In this sense, truth bearers, in order to be true (and for us to know that they are true), are determined by truth makers.
What is a realist? Well, it depends on what you’re a realist about, and whether you’re talking about realism in the epistemic sense or in the metaphysical sense. While Fumerton’s interest is in the epistemic sense, a metaphysical example will help to clarify what realism is: a realist about God holds that God exists; an anti-realist about God holds that God doesn’t exist. Simple enough.
Now, instead of discussing existence of something, we’re talking about our knowledge—the epistemic sense of realism.
Fumerton starts with the proposition that realists about truth hold that truth is mind-independent. However, we’ll see that this needs to be altered to avoid problems.
(And we shouldn’t characterize the anti-realist about truth as holding that, conversely, truth is mind-dependent. Fumerton will attempt to establish what anti-realists believe later in the book.)
The first problem that this type of realist about truth will have is that truths about minds are mind-dependent. It’s in a pretty simplistic sense, but any truth about a mind has to be at least partially mind-dependent.
So the realist about truth can alter the view: truth makers are mind-independent. This means that things like facts don’t depend on the mind, which seems like a stronger view out of the gate, but it will have to face a similar problem: there can be facts about minds, and these facts would be mind-dependent.
If the truth is determined by facts about someone’s beliefs, for example, the truth bearer (a belief, a statement, etc.) would also be the truth maker (the fact, or way that the world is). If the truth bearer determines the truth maker, how can the truth maker adequately determine the truth bearer?
The realist about truth can avoid this problem by distinguishing the concepts of the way the world is from one’s representation of the world. If I am wearing a watch at this moment, that is a fact about the world. If I believe I’m wearing a watch at this moment—this is my representation of the way the world is—it has no effect on the fact that I am wearing a watch.
The ‘watch on my arm’ is a common feature of the two (distinct) concepts. However, my representation of the watch on my arm is dependent on the watch’s actually being on my arm.
As long as these concepts are distinct, truth makers are what Fumerton calls conceptually independent. The way the world is (the truth maker), because it is conceptually distinct from a representation of the world (the truth bearer), can’t depend on this representation.
To illustrate*: I could lend you twenty dollars by giving you a twenty-dollar bill. You could adequately pay me back by giving me eighty quarters. This is because dollars bills and coins function on the same concept of value, and as a result, the amount of money you owe me can depend on how many dollars (or coins) I have given you.
You could not, however, adequately pay me back using Monopoly money. This is because Monopoly money is distinct from and does not function on the same concept of value as real dollar bills and coins. The amount of (real) money you owe me is not dependent on how many Monopoly dollars I have given you.
Once truth makers (real money) are conceptually distinct from truth bearers (Monopoly money), the realist about truth can consistently say that facts about the way the world is are mind-independent while truth is mind-dependent.
More on Realism and the Correspondence Theory of Truth will be posted periodically throughout the summer.
——
*This example is mine, not Fumerton’s. If it or anything/everything else in this post is wildly inaccurate, it is my fault.
Pingback: Do you believe in solubility? | epistemetaphlogic