JENNIFER HORNSBY VIRTUAL ISSUE NO. 1 Truth: The Identity ...

Jennifer Hornsby The Aristotelian Society Virtual Issue No. 1
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The idea now is that if there was something distinct from a thinkable
such that establishing that some relation obtained between it and the
thinkable was a way of getting to know whether the thinkable was true,
then someone could be in the position of knowing what is known when
the thinkable is known, yet of still not knowing whether it was true. But
of course one could never be in that position: to discover whether p is
already to discover whether it is true that p.
This reveals a general difficulty about defining truth – the difficulty
which shows up 'when we confront the same question again'.
In a definition certain characteristics would have to be stated. And in
application to any particular case the question would always arise
whether it were true that the characteristics we represent.
'Consequently', Frege concludes, 'it is probable that the word 'true' is
unique and indefinable' (p. 19).
When one follows Frege's argument through to this general
conclusion, about the definability of truth, explicit opposition to the
correspondence theory is lost: the correspondence theorist's definition
fails to meet a constraint on any adequate definition; but it turns out not
to be alone in that failure. Frege accordingly might be thought to have
argued against an especially naive correspondence theory in the first
instance, and then turned to opposing the whole idea of truth's
definability. But there can be a point in thinking of Frege's initial
argument as meant to show that a correspondence theory in particular –
and any correspondence theory – is untenable. This is an argument
which is sound only if the identity theory escapes its reductio. Its
conclusion may be dressed up in high-flown language: there cannot be
an ontological gap between thought ('an idea') and the world
('something real').
1.4 The identity theory, at any rate, is distinguishable from any
correspondence theory. And the identity theory is worth considering to
the extent to which correspondence theories are worth avoiding. I think
that correspondence theories need to be avoided. I mean by this not
merely that they are incorrect, but that people are apt to believe them.
It is common for philosophers to speak as if a correspondence theory
of truth had no metaphysical import whatever. We are sometimes told
that the idea of correspondence is recorded in a series of platitudes that
any theorist of truth has to respect. Simon Blackburn has spoken of the
phrase 'corresponds to the facts' as sometimes a piece of Pentagonese – a
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