International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Volume 20, Issue 1, Page 125-133, February 2012.

According to alethic functionalism, truth is a generic alethic property related to lower level alethic properties through the manifestation relation. The manifestation relation is reflexive; thus, a proposition’s truth-manifesting property may be a lower level property or truth itself, depending on the subject matter properties of the proposition. A true proposition whose truth-manifesting property is truth itself, rather than a lower level alethic property, is plainly true. Alethic functionalism relies on plain truth to account for the truth of propositions with (...) challenging subject matter properties, such as logically complex propositions and truth attributions. In this paper, it is argued that plain truth leads to a number of serious problems for alethic functionalism. First: Shapiro argues that plain truth threatens alethic functionalism with collapse to strong alethic monism; it is argued here that collapse is not merely threatened, but that, on pain of contradiction, collapse is immediate. Second, alethic functionalism’s commitment to alethic pluralism requires lower level alethic properties to be ways of being truth, where one property’s being a way of being the other property is irreflexive; thus, alethic functionalism is incoherent due to the conflicting commitments to a manifestation relation which is both reflexive and irreflexive. Third, it is argued that a reflexive manifestation relation leads to the contradiction that a lower level alethic property which manifests truth is both identical to and distinct from truth itself. Fourth, careful examination of the notion of a core truism shows that Objectivity and the correspondence intuition are the only core truisms. Finally, it is argued that the first and fourth problems jointly entail a collapse of alethic functionalism to strong correspondence monism. (shrink)

Michael Lynch has recently proposed an updated version of alethic functionalism according to which the relation between truth per se and lower-level truth properties is not the realization relation, as might be expected, and as Lynch himself formerly held, but the manifestation relation. I argue that the manifestation relation is merely a resemblance relation and is inadequate to properly relate truth per se to lower-level truth properties. I also argue that alethic functionalism does not justify the claim that truth per (...) se exists, or that truth per se is a functional property. Finally, I suggest a replacement for the manifestation relation. I argue that the resulting theory is a strict improvement over alethic functionalism on two counts, but that the improved theory does not justify the claim that truth per se exists. Since no further improvements to the theory are apparent, the prospects for alethic functionalism are dim. (shrink)

Truth pluralists say that truth-bearers in different “discourses”, “domains”, “domains of discourse”, or “domains of inquiry” are apt to be true in different ways – for instance, that mathematical discourse or ethical discourse is apt to be true in a different way to ordinary descriptive or scientific discourse. Moreover, the notion of a “domain” is often explicitly employed in formulating pluralist theories of truth. Consequently, the notion of a “domain” is attracting increasing attention, both critical and constructive. I argue that (...) this is a red herring. First, I identify the theoretical role for which pluralists appeal to domains, which is to answer what I call the “Individuation Problem”: saying what determines the way in which a particular truth-bearer is apt to be true. Second, I argue that pluralists need not appeal to domains for this purpose. I thus conclude that, despite the usual way of glossing the view, there is no role for the notion of a “domain” to play in the pluralist’s theory of truth. I argue that this defuses the “Problem of Mixed Atomics” and allows the pluralist to sidestep potentially intractable disputes about the nature of domains. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I argue that we should be pluralists about truth and in turn, eliminativists about the property Truth. Traditional deflationists were right to suspect that there is no such property as Truth. Yet there is a plurality of pluralities of properties which enjoy defining features that Truth would have, were it to exist. So although, in this sense, truth is plural, Truth is non-existent. The resulting account of truth is indebted to deflationism as the provenance of the suspicion (...) that Truth doesn't exist. But it would be hasty to simply classify the account as deflationary. Each of the 'truth-like' properties that it recognizes is highly substantive--that is, complex and explanatorily potent. So we should deflate Truth by recognizing that it doesn't exist, but we should also recognize that one of the most vital tasks in truth theory is to discover the essences of the many truth-like properties. My aim here is to do precisely this. (shrink)