Abstract

Many writers have contributed to a great variety of different studies concerning the theory of truth. Deflationism can be seen as a current mainstream philosophical theory on “truth”. Although there are the various types of deflationism which are motivated by distinct concerns and differ in their details, the core tenet shared by all deflationism is that truth is essentially trivial. Paul Horwich’s “minimalism” has an essential commitment to ideas that truth is a single primitive property that is logical and that the concept of truth is not used to explain other concepts. In this paper, I criticize Horwich’s “minimalism” and show two ways that “truth” can be used in that Horwich misses. I begin by briefly outlining Horwich’s argument on truth before introducing my own criticisms and arguments. I then show that it is possible for truth to be multivocal, that is, that truth is not only a logical property but also a substantive property. Horwich seems not to have considered this possibility. Finally, I demonstrate that the concept of assertion can be explained in terms of the concept of truth.